Beginning Access™ 2007 VBA

1.3. Access 2007 VBA Programming 101

Many people first enter the world of programming by creating simple Access applications that become a success and must be expanded. These programmers typically have little to no formal experience in designing software applications and have taught themselves how to write basic Access applications. They now need to use VBA to extend those applications. You may very well fall into this category. The rest of this chapter will provide you with a basic overview of general programming concepts such as the phases of the Systems Development Life Cycle and will explain how Access VBA fits into each of these phases.

All applications should be written according to a development methodology that provides guidelines for developing the application. A commonly followed development methodology is a Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), which includes the following phases:

• Requirements gathering

• Designing

• Developing

• Testing

• Implementing

These phases are discussed in detail below.

Various other types of application development methodologies can be used in addition to, or instead of, the Systems Development Life Cycle as appropriate, such as Rapid Application Design (RAD) techniques, Extreme Programming techniques, and so on.

1.3.1. Requirements-Gathering Phase

In the requirements-gathering phase, your goal is to identify the objectives for the new application. The final output of the requirements-gathering phase should be a document describing the purpose of and ...