No more dummies books... ever.

I needed a decent book for teaching myself MS Access 2002. (Yes, an old version of software, and therefore difficult to obtain useful resources.) I struggled on with "Access For Dummies" but finally had enough of the stupid, inane tone and frantic ideology of attempting a funny one-liner somewhere in each line. I needed information that was concise, sensible and actually useable. Access Bible delivers learning that builds competency, showing clearly the development of a database using a single example (the Animal Hospital). As a reference, it is also eminently navigable, which is a huge relief in comparison with many other texts.

My only complaint is that the starter version of the example database file--Mountain Animal Start.mdb--which should contain only unrelated tables (making it suitable for building relationships from scratch) was mistakenly more developed that it should have been; not a completed database, just containing more than simply tables. It was annoying to have to pore through it to dismantle things back to bare tables, but overall, the journey to develop the Animal Hospital database still makes this book an excellent reference. Partnered with a good design book--eg, "Beginning Database Design" from Wrox--this book can get you up to speed on writing database applications that do what you need them to.

Other Reviews

• Access Bible 2002
• No more dummies books... ever.
• Great book from the Access Experts!!!!!