access or vb

[beginnerman]

I am learning programming and was told to use access because of the large amount of programs that I can write. However, recently I am seeing that visual basic is better. Before I really study one or the other I would like to ask anyone for their honest opinion. Which program is better to create programs in?

 

[JohnVogel]

beginnerman,

Access is a database environment for designing and working with databases. Visual Basic is a programming environment for writing programs. If you are writing database driven programs, you should check out Visual Basic and Visual C# Concepts Accessing Data

-+{John Vogel}+-

 

[beginnerman]

Thank you John. I have dabbed with Visual Basic.net for a little time now, but still trying to learn all the codes. I recently went to access because the program my company uses is a great program that was writen in Access, however, I don't want to learn both programs at one time. If Visual Basic.net is a great program should I just stick with VB.net or learn Access to write programs that needs to hold data (example: I own a bail bond company and my girlfriend is a mortgage loan officer). I am trying to write one for her as well and we need a program that holds records of people and print reports.

 

[JohnVogel]

The big differance between working with Visual Basic .net and Access is that you can build a stand-alone program with Visual Basic .net, whereas in order to run an Access database you will need to use Microsoft Access or a third party (like VB) in order to access the data.

I once built an entire enterprise database project for a manufacturing plant in Virginia, starting from the groun up. I used Access for the basic structure, but eventually found that I needed more funcionality then Access provided. You can set up a fairly complicated system in Access (One such system I designed in pure Microsoft Access was a system for a Service Station to keep track of fuel usage and print reports based on EPA standards), but the more complicated the system becomes, the easier it is to accomplish the same tasks in Visual Basic.

HTH



-+{John Vogel}+-

 

[ThatRickGuy]

VBA (Access code), VB 6, and VB.Net all have very similar syntax. They way you write things from one to the next is almost identical. VB.Net even has a namespace didicated to the original VB 6 commands.

That being said, the way you design an application is dramaticly different. VB.Net is an Object Oriented language. You create classes to do your work. VB6/VBA are Event Driven structured languages. VB6 allows for some Object Orientation, but is very limited in this regard.

If your goal is to get into the professional development arena, I would recommend VB.Net. It is a current industry standard. The biggest learning curve is the Object Oriented fundamentals. (See faq faq796-5611)

If your goal is to work with existing Access database, reports, intefaces, etc as a spare time kind of deal, I would say just use Access.

-Rick

-Rick

VB.Net Forum forum796 forum855 ASP.NET Forum
I believe in killer coding ninja monkeys.

 

[beginnerman]

I am very sorry for all the obvious questions, however, to me they are not so obvious. My teacher really couldn't answer any of my questions (probably because they don't relate to our class). Is it true that most big corporations use databased programs and not object oriented. If that is true why use vb.net instead of Access? I do know while using Access 2003 I have write using VBA code and also with VB.net. It just seems to me that Visual Basic.net is a program that only allows one to write small programs.

Sorry for the ignorance on my part - I am just trying to grasp this whole programming thing.

 

[ThatRickGuy]

Most companies use data application. There is very little you do in the business world that doesn't involve storing, changing and reporting on data.

Access gives you a quick way to do that, but it has many limitation.

VB.Net is a fully independant programming language. It bypasses all of the limitations of Access coding and allows you to work with more robust data bases (ie: SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc)

-Rick

VB.Net Forum forum796 forum855 ASP.NET Forum
I believe in killer coding ninja monkeys.