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Visual Basic class any help for learning VBA

I am not sure which would be the best place to post this question, so I'm
posing it here with Access general questions. I have reached the point many
times in Word and in Access where my ignorance of VBA is a real detriment to
me. I saw some posts about VBA classes with a particular vendor and the
poster was advised not to take the class because of the likelihood of an
unskilled trainer.

My question is, would taking a Visual Basic class be of any assistance to me
or is that really a very different animal from VBA? Several people mentioned
buying VBA books but I find that I'm not disciplined enough to just sit and
read that type of book.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Ann

--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com
Mar 13 '06 #1
18 2358

"Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com" <u16643@uwe> wrote in message
news:5d368b447cc89@uwe...
I am not sure which would be the best place to post this question, so I'm
posing it here with Access general questions. I have reached the point
many
times in Word and in Access where my ignorance of VBA is a real detriment
to
me. I saw some posts about VBA classes with a particular vendor and the
poster was advised not to take the class because of the likelihood of an
unskilled trainer.

My question is, would taking a Visual Basic class be of any assistance to
me
or is that really a very different animal from VBA? Several people
mentioned
buying VBA books but I find that I'm not disciplined enough to just sit
and
read that type of book.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Ann

It is pretty much the same thing - especially when you are just beginning.
In fact, if you are taking a beginner's course it shouldn't really make much
difference - the first steps of how to dimension variables, write subs and
functions, code loops and ifs, thens, etc will all be the same.
However, there may be some visual basic programmers who never do much work
with databases or Word documents so that although the langauge is 95% the
same, the focus is different. In this newsgroup, people ask about forms,
subforms, retrieving and updating data and in the Word newsgroups they ask
about documents, mailmerges, etc. In other words you could choose to focus
your programming skills on a number of different areas.
Mar 13 '06 #2
It won't hurt you. VBA is a subset of Visual Basic, many of the
commands, programming constructs, etc will be the same.

However, getting a pure VBA class, or book will help you with Access
specific things that you may be trying to do for your employer. There
are classes for Access out there, you can purchase and/or rent videos
that cover all aspects of Access development, Keystone has some good
ones. There are also a LOT of free resources on the Internet, where
you can find well written code examples and tutorials that will give
you real world scenarios that you can modify for your own projects.

Purely my .02 on the matter, if you email me directly, I would be happy
to provide the links to some of these resources.

Sincerely,

mksnyder
Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com wrote:
I am not sure which would be the best place to post this question, so I'm
posing it here with Access general questions. I have reached the point many
times in Word and in Access where my ignorance of VBA is a real detriment to
me. I saw some posts about VBA classes with a particular vendor and the
poster was advised not to take the class because of the likelihood of an
unskilled trainer.

My question is, would taking a Visual Basic class be of any assistance to me
or is that really a very different animal from VBA? Several people mentioned
buying VBA books but I find that I'm not disciplined enough to just sit and
read that type of book.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Ann

--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com


Mar 13 '06 #3
Thanks to both of you who answered my post. I appreciate your input.

I would love to email you directly about the net resources you mention, but I
don't see an address. Mine is

ann dot scharpf at dfas dot mil

mksnyder wrote:
It won't hurt you. VBA is a subset of Visual Basic, many of the
commands, programming constructs, etc will be the same.

However, getting a pure VBA class, or book will help you with Access
specific things that you may be trying to do for your employer. There
are classes for Access out there, you can purchase and/or rent videos
that cover all aspects of Access development, Keystone has some good
ones. There are also a LOT of free resources on the Internet, where
you can find well written code examples and tutorials that will give
you real world scenarios that you can modify for your own projects.

Purely my .02 on the matter, if you email me directly, I would be happy
to provide the links to some of these resources.

Sincerely,

mksnyder
I am not sure which would be the best place to post this question, so I'm
posing it here with Access general questions. I have reached the point many

[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]

Ann


--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com
Mar 14 '06 #4
Personally (and I'm speaking as a past applications trainer who did teach
VBA) I believe that there isn't much to be gained from training courses
unless you already know a bit before you go.

A college course is a different kettle of fish as they tend to take place
over a number of weeks and allow the lecturer to set the foundations at each
stage before moving on.

I personally learnt to program by attending evening classes at my local
college and learnt VBA for Access by using the wizards and seeing how they
did things and then extended that by use of the VBA help file (mainly).

You've got to remember that VBA means Visual Basic for Applications, it's a
programming language which is based on VB but has extensions for the
particular application you are programming against, so although there are
broad areas where VBA for Access overlaps with VBA for Word, there are also
extensive parts where they don't match up.

The important thing with any programming language is to first of all learn
how to program then you can worry about how a particular language works.

By learning "how to program" I mean learn the three basics which apply to
all programming languages i.e. sequence, selection and iteration, once
you've got that it's simply a matter of finding how the particular language
you are learning applies those principles and you're well on your way.
--

Terry Kreft
"Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com" <u16643@uwe> wrote in message
news:5d368b447cc89@uwe...
I am not sure which would be the best place to post this question, so I'm
posing it here with Access general questions. I have reached the point many times in Word and in Access where my ignorance of VBA is a real detriment to me. I saw some posts about VBA classes with a particular vendor and the
poster was advised not to take the class because of the likelihood of an
unskilled trainer.

My question is, would taking a Visual Basic class be of any assistance to me or is that really a very different animal from VBA? Several people mentioned buying VBA books but I find that I'm not disciplined enough to just sit and read that type of book.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Ann

--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com

Mar 14 '06 #5
Previously when I searched the net for VBA classes, I didn't find any good
hits. This time I searched for VBA ACCESS TUTORIAL and found the following
site. It looks very useful and, unlike many web pages of this type, is
formatted very well for printing. I'm making myself a little manual right
now as a starting point.

http://www.functionx.com/vbaccess/index.htm

mksnyder wrote:
Purely my .02 on the matter, if you email me directly, I would be happy
to provide the links to some of these resources.

Sincerely,

mksnyder


--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/For...ccess/200603/1
Mar 14 '06 #6
Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com wrote:
Previously when I searched the net for VBA classes, I didn't find any good
hits. This time I searched for VBA ACCESS TUTORIAL and found the following
site. It looks very useful and, unlike many web pages of this type, is
formatted very well for printing. I'm making myself a little manual right
now as a starting point.

http://www.functionx.com/vbaccess/index.htm

mksnyder wrote:
Purely my .02 on the matter, if you email me directly, I would be happy
to provide the links to some of these resources.

Sincerely,

mksnyder


Clarification please. It appears that the VBA tutorials is only
available for purchase - correct?

Bob
Mar 14 '06 #7
No. There is a for purchase version and then there are 23 detailed lessons;
each is a separate htm file. There is some advertising on the page but I
didn't find it to be too intrusive.. I printed all the free lessons. They
range from 4 pages - 32 pages per lesson. Printed double-sided, the
materials filled a 1/2" ring binder.

Here are the lesson topics that I printed:

1.*Introduction to VB Access
2.*Objects and Collections
3.*Data Types and Variables
4.*DAO, ADO, ADOX, and SQL
5.*Procedures and Functions
6.*Conditional Statements
7.*Error Handling
8.*The Tables of a Database
9.*The Columns of a Table
10. The Forms of an Application
11. The Windows Controls of a Form
12. The Records of a Database
13. Details on Data Entry
14. Data Entry and Built-In Functions
15. The Queries of a Database
16. Printing
17. Relationships and Data Integrity
18. Data Joins
19. Details on Creating Queries
20. Data Analysis
21. Using Queries
22. Introduction to Record Sets
23. Data Views and Stored Procedures

The purchase version has some unspecified "extra materials" and costs $22.
Bob Alston wrote:
Previously when I searched the net for VBA classes, I didn't find any good
hits. This time I searched for VBA ACCESS TUTORIAL and found the following

[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]

mksnyder


Clarification please. It appears that the VBA tutorials is only
available for purchase - correct?

Bob


--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/For...ccess/200603/1
Mar 14 '06 #8
> http://www.functionx.com/vbaccess/index.htm

The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable than a
bucket of rocks.

Mar 14 '06 #9
I know nothing about VBA and am trying to teach myself from scratch. Do you
have a better resource to recomment?

Lyle Fairfield wrote:
http://www.functionx.com/vbaccess/index.htm


The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable than a
bucket of rocks.


--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/For...ccess/200603/1
Mar 14 '06 #10
Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com wrote:
I know nothing about VBA and am trying to teach myself from scratch. Do you
have a better resource to recomment?

Lyle Fairfield wrote:
http://www.functionx.com/vbaccess/index.htm


The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable than a
bucket of rocks.


You might also take a look at this one

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/Tutorial...&tutorialID=52

Bob
Mar 14 '06 #11
Looks like an interesting site but I don't see anything about VBA on it. Am
I missing something?

Bob Alston wrote:
I know nothing about VBA and am trying to teach myself from scratch. Do you
have a better resource to recomment?

[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable than a
bucket of rocks.


You might also take a look at this one

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/Tutorial...&tutorialID=52

Bob


--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com
Mar 14 '06 #12
Not really. But I'll indulge myself with some gratuitous comments and
mild opinions.

At one time we all knew nothing about VBA. Many of us still don't;
we're just faking it.

A major problem with much of the VBA one sees is that the persons who
wrote it are deficient in logic and mathematics, especially the
mathematics of sets and groups. One cannot code a poor idea or a poor
solution well, no matter what coding skills one has. Almost everyone
seems to start their db design with the parent entities and proceed to
child entities; this is inefficient, ineffective and just plain wrong.
When I see the term, "One to Many" I start to hyperventilate.

Access/VBA and JET are undergoing major changes at this time. I feel
(after only a cursory look, admittedly) that the ideas of VBA, Database
Design and UI of the site you specified are ancient, obsolete, archaic
and lousy. One could learn everything in all the lessons and be ten
years behind current technology. Some of this archaic stuff is commonly
posted as solutions here in CDMA.

I learned to code by the try-and-fail method, mostly fail. I'm
partial to that method because of it. If you had the self-discipline to
do the same, then this newsgroup could be a great resource for you,
especially if you took the time to try to learn who's hot and who's
not. MVP is not a good indicator of this. Some MVPs are hot, many are
just dull, a few spew out the party line even after the party line has
been discredited, and at least one is bizarrely incompetent and
verbose.

Time to go do something useful.

Mar 14 '06 #13
Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com wrote:
Looks like an interesting site but I don't see anything about VBA on it. Am
I missing something?

Bob Alston wrote:
I know nothing about VBA and am trying to teach myself from scratch. Do you
have a better resource to recomment?


[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable than a
bucket of rocks.


You might also take a look at this one

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/Tutorial...&tutorialID=52

Bob


It is an overall Access site. Sorry if there is not much on it about VBA.

Bob
Mar 14 '06 #14
Bob Alston wrote:
Ann Scharpf via AccessMonster.com wrote:
Looks like an interesting site but I don't see anything about VBA on
it. Am
I missing something?

Bob Alston wrote:
I know nothing about VBA and am trying to teach myself from
scratch. Do you
have a better resource to recomment?
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]

> The persons who wrote this are neither stupider nor less capable
> than a
> bucket of rocks.
You might also take a look at this one

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/Tutorial...&tutorialID=52
Bob


It is an overall Access site. Sorry if there is not much on it about VBA.

Bob

YOu might look at this one. the first few courses are free. YOu could
then see if the $99 Cd is worthwhile and also perhaps get started on
your education.

http://www.computer-training-software.com/accessvb.htm

Consider these:

http://www.fontstuff.com/vba/index.htm

http://www.fontstuff.com/access/index.htm

Some of the Access 2002 VBA modules are available free
http://www.vtc.com/products/vbaccess2002.htm

Just some stuff I found on the web.

Bob
Mar 14 '06 #15
I learn a lot by the endeavor & fail method also. But you have to at least
have some idea of what you're looking at. I'm finding this tutorial is
giving me a sense of how to maneuver around. This is just a starting point,
not an ending point to my learning.

The lessons are built off the Access objects that you get if you buy the $22
"full package" so I am having to wing it a bit. The tutorial is still
helpful for someone who knows absolutely nothing.

Lyle Fairfield wrote:
Not really. But I'll indulge myself with some gratuitous comments and
mild opinions.

At one time we all knew nothing about VBA. Many of us still don't;
we're just faking it.

A major problem with much of the VBA one sees is that the persons who
wrote it are deficient in logic and mathematics, especially the
mathematics of sets and groups. One cannot code a poor idea or a poor
solution well, no matter what coding skills one has. Almost everyone
seems to start their db design with the parent entities and proceed to
child entities; this is inefficient, ineffective and just plain wrong.
When I see the term, "One to Many" I start to hyperventilate.

Access/VBA and JET are undergoing major changes at this time. I feel
(after only a cursory look, admittedly) that the ideas of VBA, Database
Design and UI of the site you specified are ancient, obsolete, archaic
and lousy. One could learn everything in all the lessons and be ten
years behind current technology. Some of this archaic stuff is commonly
posted as solutions here in CDMA.

I learned to code by the try-and-fail method, mostly fail. I'm
partial to that method because of it. If you had the self-discipline to
do the same, then this newsgroup could be a great resource for you,
especially if you took the time to try to learn who's hot and who's
not. MVP is not a good indicator of this. Some MVPs are hot, many are
just dull, a few spew out the party line even after the party line has
been discredited, and at least one is bizarrely incompetent and
verbose.

Time to go do something useful.


--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com
Mar 14 '06 #16
Thank you.

Bob Alston wrote:
Looks like an interesting site but I don't see anything about VBA on
it. Am

[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]

Bob

YOu might look at this one. the first few courses are free. YOu could
then see if the $99 Cd is worthwhile and also perhaps get started on
your education.

http://www.computer-training-software.com/accessvb.htm

Consider these:

http://www.fontstuff.com/vba/index.htm

http://www.fontstuff.com/access/index.htm

Some of the Access 2002 VBA modules are available free
http://www.vtc.com/products/vbaccess2002.htm

Just some stuff I found on the web.

Bob


--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/For...ccess/200603/1
Mar 14 '06 #17

I would agree with much of what Lyle says here.

It is important to get a good grounding in _how_ to program and at least
some idea of what is going on behind the scenes before you start to worry
too much about learning a specific language.

Once you know enough to question, then probably the best resource you will
find on the net is this newsgroup, although it isn't a good place for
tutorials. Occasionally though someone will post a lengthy discourse on a
particular topic which are frequently good reading.
--

Terry Kreft

PS Lyle, WRT para2; will you please get that camera out of my office ! <g>.

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly***********@aim.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@v46g2000cwv.googlegro ups.com...
Not really. But I'll indulge myself with some gratuitous comments and
mild opinions.

At one time we all knew nothing about VBA. Many of us still don't;
we're just faking it.

A major problem with much of the VBA one sees is that the persons who
wrote it are deficient in logic and mathematics, especially the
mathematics of sets and groups. One cannot code a poor idea or a poor
solution well, no matter what coding skills one has. Almost everyone
seems to start their db design with the parent entities and proceed to
child entities; this is inefficient, ineffective and just plain wrong.
When I see the term, "One to Many" I start to hyperventilate.

Access/VBA and JET are undergoing major changes at this time. I feel
(after only a cursory look, admittedly) that the ideas of VBA, Database
Design and UI of the site you specified are ancient, obsolete, archaic
and lousy. One could learn everything in all the lessons and be ten
years behind current technology. Some of this archaic stuff is commonly
posted as solutions here in CDMA.

I learned to code by the try-and-fail method, mostly fail. I'm
partial to that method because of it. If you had the self-discipline to
do the same, then this newsgroup could be a great resource for you,
especially if you took the time to try to learn who's hot and who's
not. MVP is not a good indicator of this. Some MVPs are hot, many are
just dull, a few spew out the party line even after the party line has
been discredited, and at least one is bizarrely incompetent and
verbose.

Time to go do something useful.

Mar 15 '06 #18
Terry Kreft wrote:
It is important to get a good grounding in _how_ to program and at least
some idea of what is going on behind the scenes before you start to worry
too much about learning a specific language.


Yesterday I wrote an ASP/JavaScript/ADO "application". It does what I
want: I type in an SQL SELECT script or a SPROC or VIEW name; it
executes the statement and displays the returned Recordset formatted
according to a bunch of rules. Am I done? No!

Today I will get out an ancient (1982) book, Writing Efficient
Programs, by Jon Louis Bentley and assess my code against his seven
page Summary of the Rules in Appendix C. Among other things I will find
expressions which have been evaluated twice and change the script to
evaluate them once and assign their value to a variable. I will modify
my Switch (Select Case) statements so that the most likely to be true
and/or fastest least expensive tests are made first, and the least
likely to be true and slowest most expensive tests are made last.

Will this make any difference to what is seen by the user? Probably, it
will not.
Will it make any noticeable difference to the time the "application"
requires? That is very unlikely.

Then why will I take this time?
Well, the script will be easier to understand and maintain. But the
most important reason is pride. I think any work requires pride on the
part of the worker to be done well. After I have done my
assessment/revision, I will be just as happy, self-satisfied and proud
as if I had painted a picture or composed a melody.

The examples in the book to which I referred are all Pascal; this has
nothing to do with the usefulness of the book; its ideas are still good
and true twenty-four years after its printing. Good programming is good
programming, no matter what the language/technology.

Mar 15 '06 #19

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