New to Access-Need book recommendation

[Sally W.]

We're using Access and FrontPage 2003 and want to post a database on the Web
which we've never done before. I've been told that MS improved Acess for Web
database development in the 2003 version. (Apparently Access releases the
connection quicker than it used to making it more suitable for the Web).

Our databases will be used primarily to post pictures of faculty/students
along with some descriptive text for each one. The tables that hold these
will be changed frequently. Is Access now a good tool to do this or would we
be better off to go to SQL Server? (We just don't know at this point how
much we will be using databases).

Finally, can someone recommend a good book to use for learning purposes?
Thanks for any help!

Sally

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

We're using Access and FrontPage 2003 and want to post a database on the
Web which we've never done before. I've been told that MS improved Access
for Web database development in the 2003 version. (Apparently Access
releases the connection quicker than it used to making it more suitable
for the Web).

Our databases will be used primarily to post pictures of
faculty/students along with some descriptive text for each one. The
tables that hold these will be changed frequently. Is Access now a good
tool to do this or would we be better off to go to SQL Server? (We just
don't know at this point how much we will be using databases).

Finally, can someone recommend a good book to use for learning purposes?
Thanks for any help!

You should be able to use a JET Database for this, unless you have millions
of students. A JET table could hold the descriptive text and file location
for each faculty member/student.

ASP / ASP.NET with OLEDB and ADO / ADO.NET could create html pages showing
the information and pictures.

This is quite a simple task, but one needs to know the technologies
involved.

Front Page can probably do it without much knowledge on the part of the
user. I am one of several developers who try to keep far away from Front
Page, because I have found that Front Page does whatever its creators told
it to do, regardless of what its user tells it to do. (I'm the same for
Visio, Crystal Reports and the Agent Newsreader, all applications which I
have purchased and discarded.)

And with Access one could create Data Access Pages which could do the job.
But connecting to these has been enough of a problem that, TTBOMK, they are
not used extensively.

One thing you should consider is:
"Can my db engine tolerate the number of persistent connections I might
need?" Front Page and Access may give you persistent connections (maybe
even more than one per user), and this may mean you need more power,
perhaps MS-SQL server, on the backend.

ASP, OLEDB, ADO, HTML and Jet will do what you describe without persistent
connectionc and, in most cases, cost nothing.

As you may be able to guess, I am not a fan of persistent connections.

 

[Noah Ganter]

A Good book on access is "Access Database: Design and Programing" by Roman,
published by O'Reilly. What
you will find by reading it is that T-SQL was viewed as too technical for
the average user so Microsoft slapped a GUI front end onto it,
and ta-da! Access. I'm a computer professional and except for learning about
how Access works, I never
invested anytime in learning to use it because T-SQL and SQL Server are
much, much more powerful (and flexible, and scalable, etc.).

I think Access sounds like a great starting point for this project but
anytime investing in learning Access's idiosyncratic user commands will
probably be wasted once Access is deprecated. Time spent learning T-SQL and
SQL Server will pay off down the road.

And fans of Access say...

 

[Sally W.]

more complicated by the minute. From what I'm gathering, Access is not a
good idea.

Can you tell me the difference between T-SQL and SQL Server? Is one faster
or meant for larger databases?

Finally, using FP 2003 can just one database be utilizied for our site and
subsites, or will we need to create one database for the main site and one
for each subsite? Thanks again.

 

[Sally W.]

Please tell me what a JET Database is. I've never heard that term used.
Thank you.

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

Please tell me what a JET Database is. I've never heard that term used.

A JET Database is a database created and managed my Microsoft's Jet Database
engine (program). It was propeller driven until MS bought FoxPro and
implemented its proprietary Rushmore optimization technology within JET.

Access is a graphic user interface for (almost always) databases.
The default database for most Access applications is JET. Access and JET are
very closely linked. JET files (mdb, mde etc) house the Access application,
storing its objects in containers (pre AC2k) and later in Access Objects.
This is quite efficient, but it may lead to corruption, compiling and
compacting difficulties.

If you use a JET database with VB or ASP or some other front end application,
the Access component is redundant, and, as I recall, can be removed.

You do not need to buy Access to use JET.

 

[Sally W.]

Thank you, Lyle. Reading between the lines I guess you, and others,
recommend against using Access on the Web, unless for very simple
applications. Is that a fair summation?

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

Thank you, Lyle. Reading between the lines I guess you, and others,
recommend against using Access on the Web, unless for very simple
applications. Is that a fair summation?

No, it's not. IMO unless you are accessing something humongous like "Lies
by the Bush Family", JET, (Access), is just fine for the web.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

For a starting point, Access will be fine. It's cost must less than
SQL-Server and most of the things that you will make on Access will be
portable to SQL-Server. (And yes, if you ask me, I'm alreading beginning to
hear some outrageous cries from some folks.)

The following link contains a small introduction on how to create and
integrate a database using the FrontPage 2002 Database Wizard :
http://www.frontpagewizard.com/frontpage_how_to_tips_and_tricks/fp_database.htm

The pages created by the FrontPage Wizard are somewhat simple, easy to study
and are of the ASP type; which is probably one of the easiest way to program
databases for the web. For the books, I have started with "Professional
Active Server Pages 3.0" from Wrox but any other good books on ASP will be
probably worth buying. ASP pages also make heavy use of ADO to communicate
with databases, so you may find usefull to buy a book on ADO too.

However, take care to not confuse ASP with ASP.NET and ADO with ADO.NET.
ASP.NET is the successor of ASP but is somewhat more difficult to learn.
Pages created for the ASP.NET technologie have the suffix .ASPX instead of
..ASP and won't work on a IIS server if the .NET framework has not been
installed.

T-SQL is simply the name of the sql dialect used by SQL Server. It is also
called Transact-SQL. The sql dialect used by Access is somewhat different
but, when you are a newbie, you must find a starting point somewhere to
begin your study of SQL.

Storing images in a database and displayed them on the web has some
technical difficulties. It is usually easier to just store the name of the
images in the database and use this value as the src of an img HTML element.

For FrontPage 2003, I didn't have the pleasure to install it on my system,
so I cannot tell you how much different it is from FrontPage 2002.

S. L.

 

[Peter Kaufman]

I am late on this, but in case you are still monitoring the thread,
the Access books that are head and shoulders above all the others are
the Access 2002 (or whatever) Developer's Handbook series. These are
really the bible of most Access developers. Get both the Desktop and
Enterprise volumes.

I would recommend SQL server for the back end if you go into
production with this, but you could just use Access for now. From the
sound of it, the database would not be difficult to upsize later.

This will save you the burden of having to learn SQL security, stored
procedures and other features at the same time as everything else.
It;'s not all that difficult, but if database development is new to
you there will be a lot to learn as it is. The time you spend
learning Access back end, i.e., tables and queries, will mostly be
useful on SQL server as well, so that won't be wasted.

You should also consider ASP.NET for the front end rather than Access.
A huge advantage is there is just the one front end - you don't have
to get into the agony of automating updating of front ends on client
computers.

Peter