Expert Access™ 2007 Programming

Chapter 1. Overview of Programming for Access

In this chapter, you take a look at the different mechanisms available for programming for Access and what it means to program Access applications. You will see that with the ability to use the Access object model outside of Access, programming for Access is not necessarily the same as programming in Access. And, while the possibility is there to develop external applications that consume the Access object model, the primary focus of the book is scenarios that use the Access object model and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) from within Access itself.

In this chapter, you:

• Learn about using managed code and how it can be used to work with Access applications

• Review object models that are often used with Access

• Learn about off-the-shelf applications in the context of Access development and what it means to develop off-the-shelf applications

Writing Code for Access

As a part of the overall Microsoft Office family of products, Access finds itself in an interesting position. It provides many tools that Access developers and programmers at all levels use to create robust database applications for themselves or their users. Access 2007 includes a database engine for storage, forms and reports for presenting data, macro objects for automating simple tasks, and a full-featured programming model using VBA. Collectively, these components make it possible for you, as the programmer or developer, to create rich solutions that can be easily deployed ...