Access 97 -vs- Visual Basic 6.0 1

[Cleis]

Hi Group:

For the fisrt time in 6 years I've run into a developemnt issue that I cannot address using Acesss 97 although I could using Access 2000; Data Access Pages. Unfortunately my company has no plans in the near future to upgrade everyone from 97 to 2000. This has got me thinking about upgrading my skills to include VB6 however I'm somewhat hesitant for a couple of reasons:

1. I've never taken courses nor am I an I.T person. It's taken 6 long years of knocks and blood sweat and tears to learn Access to a point of being pretty effiecient. I've mastered every object within Access execpt coding. My coding skills are well above that of an average user but no near that of an someone schooled in programming lanuages. For me it's sometimes a struggle. So my question is how hard is it to pick up VB6? The VB6 enviroment seems similar?

2. Most of my work is transactional based types of databases. I'm either using Client Express to pull data from the AS/400 or I'm developing stand alone types of applications; nothing more. This being said, is it really neccessary for me to go to VB?

3. In short what are your thoughts of VB6 vs Access 97?

 

[jimmythegeek]

They are both wonderful tools! Remember that with VB6, you have NO data storage capabilities. You have to use an external database program (Access, SQL Server, Oracle, etc.), and then manipulate the data through code. The design environment is nearly identical to Access 2000.

VB is mainly a Front-End Tool, and Access is Both a Front-End and/or Back-End Tool. If you want to use VB, then you have No Choice but to learn coding. That's really the only way VB will work. In Access you can get away with using Macros, and the QBE Grid and such, but not so with VB.

Coding is definitely the most time consuming part of learning either tool. It takes patience, and perserverance to see it through. You will bang your head on the wall more times than you want to think about, but it is very satisfying in the long run. I would certainly not want to discourage you from learning VB, but it needs to be something you really want to do. If you're not sure, or it doesn't REALLY interest you, then you probably won't last long.

It takes a special breed to thrive on staring at words on a screen, day after day, all in the hopes the computer will eventually have the consideration to do what you told it to do.

I would say if you are going to be working with transactional data the majority of the time, then spend the time to learn VBA coding. This will transition into VB down the road, but it doesn't look like you have a big need for VB applications. VB is NOT a good "Throw data in and manipulate it" program.

Either way, the more coding you learn, the more you will be able to do, good luck

Jim Lunde
compugeeks@hotmail.com
Custom Application Development