Alison Balter's Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development

While the Getz books may be for advanced developers, Alison's books are by far the best for beginning to intermediate developers. I found her explanations and sample code to be much more appropriate for me as an intermediate developer. If you consider yourself an advanced VBA developer then maybe some of this material is too basic. BUT if you're not, you owe it to yourself to look at Alison's books. They're great! This book is actually fun to read and it has served as an excellent reference for the Access applications that I continue to create. If you use SQL Server, you also look at her Enterprise book, the companion to this one.Don't change your style, Alison!I look forward to your future works!

I am a programming consultant in the Dallas area and have programmed in MS Access since 1995 when it was a Windows 3.1 product at version 2.0. I have purchased 3 MS Access books since that time and all claimed that they were for the beginner all the way up to the advanced in skill level. The first two were helpful if you were brand new to Access, but sometimes you want to accomplish certain tasks for which there is no wizard. Looking on MSDN is, at times, a shot in the dark. I found Alison's book - "Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development" to be a perfect training guide for all and an excellent reference manual as well. I sometimes carry it to a client's office instead of my MSDN CDs. If you want to learn how to make your Access DB more professional-looking, then you should get your hands on this book.

I've followed Allison's books on Microsoft Access ever since Version 1.0. Alison, Getz, and Dobson are in my opinion, the 3 top Microsoft Access authors. No one else comes close. I particularly like her excellent VBA presentation / review. Allison reviews Visual Basic by coding specific examples for every concept. As the student steps through code, they really learn to understand what is going on. The clarity of her writing inspires the self-learning to feel they can go on and get it! A great teacher!I'll be using her book for the summer class I'm teaching at U C Irvine Extension - Access - II.And if I get a chance to write a level III class, I'd use her Enterprise book.

I want to thank Alison Balter for publishing the book Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development. As a network manager/teacher, I am using concepts that I glean from this book to help instruct students and other teachers to become more knowledgeable and proficient in good database design. Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development is a substantial book (over 1300 pages). Yet readers who want to understand WHY something should be done in Access will appreciate the numerous explanations contained within its pages. This book does a great job of covering the fundamentals of Access, as well as provide ample explanations and examples dealing with advanced topics, such as ADO, VBA, and database security. As a "network person," I especially like the chapters on "Developing Multiuser and Enterprise Applications." This is a superior book for those who truly plan to develop quality applications using Access 2002.