Access to VB.Net

Upgrading from Microsoft Access to Visual Basic.Net

Who should read this?

Microsoft Access (MS Access) programmers who are considering upgrading to Visual Basic.Net

Learning Visual Basic.Net is a bit of a wrench. Having spent years learning the in's and outs of Microsoft Access, it seems a masochistic process to throw myself into learning yet another program.

It was hard enough upgrading from a DOS based database to a windows based database, The only thing that kept me going was the thought well, if I do this I won't have to do it again, and here I find myself struggling with Visual Basic Net.

I have purchased several books on the subject, I have studied web sites, forums and loads of stuff really, to try and absorb this new programming language, and the most annoying thing is that it looks just like the Visual Basic (VBA) I do in Microsoft Access. So why all the mystery? What is it about this new programming language that’s so difficult?

Object oriented programming, that's what I'm told, that's what I gather is the hard part! But then it doesn't seem right, the examples I see on object oriented programming are just normal code, they have funny bits in them like "get" and "set" and they are not called modules they are called classes and you can inherit them, but why? Why not just copy the class (or the module) into your new application? I've managed very well with this approach in Microsoft Access, and indirectly through the agency of Microsoft Access (VBA) I am learning (VB) and Visual Basic Net. I know I could quite easily start programming in Visual Basic Net and produce some nice applications. But there's a problem, I know that's not a right way to go, I know that there's something else, some think about this new Visual Basic Net that I don't know, there's a mystery to look in to.

What else could drive me to put myself in this torturous position? Well, Microsoft Access works lovely on my desktop PC, but I can see the day fast approaching where it would be nice to store all the data either on the local server or on a server located remotely across the web.

Well you might say there is a very nice addition to Microsoft Access which handles Access Data Projects, these can perform everything you would like to do with my MS-SQL and even connect to remote servers over the web.

Believe me I have considered this route and I have done several tests with a very minor application to see what I can accomplish. And I believe if I persevere I will put myself into a position where I can make a very nice Microsoft Access Project. But then I think to myself, hold on, this is going to be a significant investment of my blood sweat and tears learning how to set this up in an ADP? And what benefit will there be? In other words I feel I would be painting myself into a corner, I will be limiting my expertise to Access Database Projects? Why? For what reason? What are the alternatives?

Christmas 2004 I happened upon the book "Beginning Visual Basic.Net Databases" by the author Thearon Willis of Wrox press. And browsing through it I discovered that his intention was to use Visual Basic as a front end for either Microsoft Access Tables, MS SQL server tables or Oracle tables. Now that's an idea I thought!

Why goes to all the trouble of learning Microsoft Access Database Projects when I could just link my data directly to or through Visual Basic.Net? Then, I found a link to Wrox press resources, there are forums related to particular books. Unfortunately no forum directly related to this book, well there is, the forum is in place but there are no posts as yet.

Anyway on reading through Wrox's beginners forum for Visual Basic. Net discovered listed, a link to Joe Hummel's lectures on using Visual Basic Net for accessing databases and on how to do object orientated programming. He is a marvellous lecturer, very easy to listen to, and points out the bits of interesting code that will catch you out. His lectures are aimed at VB6 (and before) programmers, at first thought the lectures might be too advanced for me, but I was very surprised to find that I could follow most of the lectures, well, the only area where I had problems was with "interfaces" which I had not heard of before.

There are fifteen lectures of over one and a half hours in length each. I sat down and over three days watch the entire batch of fifteen lectures. At the end of this marathon I now know a bit more about VB.Net, I now know why you have object oriented programming, in fact there are lots of things I know. One of the most important things I know is that there's a bloody lot of stuff I don't know! However, what I have seen shows me that Visual Basic.net is not beyond my capabilities. I was correct in thinking that my Microsoft Access training has given me a very good leg up with this new language, and I am very interested to learn more.

To this end Joe has also provided a fantastic range of lessons that accompany each lecture these can be found at his web site and downloaded onto your PC. I found that by reading his slides and following his examples I could very easily complete the exercises, well not that easy, but because I have seen all fifteen lectures I am convinced that visual basic.net is the way for me to go.

I am a complete beginner with Visual Basic .net, however I have followed the fifteen lectures mentioned and done the first two "homework’s" provided by Joe so if you want to follow these lectures yourself and then post questions:

to this THIS THREAD I would be very glad of the opportunity to discuss issues with like minded people .