Database Design and Programming with Access, SQL, Visual Basic and ASP 

     First edition        Database Design and Programming with Access, SQL and Visual Basic published April 2000.
     Chinese edition    Published August 2001.
     Second edition    Database Design and Programming with Access, SQL, Visual Basic and ASP published September 2002.

Database Design book English edition    Database Design book Chinese edition    Database Design book English second edition   

The author, John Carter, says this about the book:

" This book was written to answer numerous questions from second and final year degree and HND students on how to implement their database applications in Access, and then how to produce workable input and update forms and reports using VB. I identified three problems: 1) incorrect database table and relationship design 2) insufficient knowledge of SQL - the main database language 3) too much dependance on Access wizards. So the three key themes in this book are entity modelling and normalisation to obtain the correct database design, SQL to perform core queries and updates on the database, and Visual Basic database programming in its three forms: data control, DAO and ADO. The feedback from my two previous database books led me to include lots and lots of examples of the things typical database applications will have to do. I have also tried to make the lecturer's life easier by including lots of exercises.

Regarding the second edition, I've added sufficient material to allow you to put your database application on the internet. To me, that seemed like the next logical step. Not all databases need to go on the internet, but if you do it, your database application is then available globally. Isn't the internet wonderful! We use ASP. The new edition beefs up the ADO chapter 11 by adding more examples, and adds an intro to the internet (chapter 13), HTML (chapter 14) and ASP programming (chapter 15). If you want to contact me on my email address John.Carter@databasedesign.co.uk, please feel free to do so. Alternatively, try our Chatline."

You can buy this book at: Amazon and McGraw-Hill

For readers: This page includes contents, detailed index, sample pages, and further exercises.
Any questions you have relating to the book will be answered on this website's technical chatline www.databasedesign.co.uk/chatline.
For readers of the second edition, there's also a free ASP server for you to upload and test your ASP applications on. Send me an email and I'll give you the FTP username and password. Look at www.itsjc.biz for more information on how to use this ASP server.

For lecturers: There is a passworded page with outline solutions to selected exercises. Send me an email with your name, role, institution and departmental telephone number in it and I'll tell you the password.

What you'll learn from this book (1st edn)

  • Database design using entity modelling and normalization, with implementation in Access
  • SQL programming
  • Access forms, macros, modules and report writer
  • Visual Basic database programming using Data Control, DAO, ADO, and Access modules
    •

    The basic approach is to teach these subjects by identifying and discussing relevant principles and illustrating and exploring each principle using examples. We believe effective database program development is founded on the fundamental skills of database design and SQL. We believe this book will be useful to database students at all levels and working database developers and programmers. All of the material in this book has been tested and refined in lectures and lab sessions at various locations and many of the examples were originally derived from practical real-world problems. There is a detailed index that will take you straight to the language construct or design principle you want. We have tried to use clear English throughout the book. (-: We hope that this will leverage functionality. :-)

    (2nd edn)

    ... all the above, plus:

  • Web development - all the buzzwords - and the advantages and disadvantages of the ASP approach
  • HTML - the language of web pages
  • ASP - creating ASP sites using HTML and VBScript to access and update databases on the internet
  • ADO - coverage is extended and includes many examples using VBScript
    •  The motivation for this second edition was the idea that the next logical step after showing how to design a database and process its data using SQL and Access and/or VB, is to show how to put the database and its processing onto the internet. ASP is a widely-used method of doing this. As you will notice from the updated Contents, Chapter 11 (the ADO programming chapter) has been extended, because ADO is the basis of ASP database programming. Chapters 13, 14 and 15 are new. Chapter 13 introduces the internet and web development techniques, options and terminology. Chapter 14 is a compact but pretty comprehensive coverage of HTML. HTML is the language of the web, just as SQL is the language of databases, and really needs to be known. This chapter, like all the other chapters, uses a separate example for each new concept. Chapter 15 covers ASP database programming, again using multiple examples, with every line in each program explained. To do ASP, you need an ASP server, and we've set up an ASP server http://www.itsjc.biz especially for readers of this book. There's also http://www.databasedesign.co.uk/chatline for you to ask and discuss technical questions relating to the book.

    Here are the contents of the second edition. The highlighted areas are the new material. All the material from the first edition has been retained (with a few minor corrections):

    Overview
    Detailed Contents

    Extracts from this book (1st edn)

    Preface
    Contents - overview
    Contents - detailed
    Index
    Sample pages

    Additional exercises (1st edn)

    additional exercises - these can be set for assignments and / or tutorial tasks

    Databases used in the book (both editions)

    The following are all the test databases used in the book. You can download them as required, just by clicking on the hyperlinks below. Note that you have to have Access installed on your machine.

      accts.mdb
      election.mdb
      emp_job.mdb
      emp_sales.mdb
      employee.mdb
      musicians.mdb
      prod_del.mdb
      tablea_tableb.mdb
      cus_purchase_prod1.mdb

    Other downloads

    The following are miscellaneous files used in the book. You can download them as required, just by clicking on the hyperlinks below. They currently have extension .mdb. You'll need to change that when you download. For example, adovbs.mdb will need to have its name changed to adovbs.inc before you can use it.

    adovbs.inc

    Contact the author

    You may send me email about anything related to this book or database design and development on or off the internet on:

    John.Carter@databasedesign.co.uk

    Contact McGraw-Hill

    You can see lots of other good computing books on McGraw-Hill's website:

    http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk

    Buy the book

    You can buy this book at: Amazon and McGraw-Hill