I've got a new Job - Systems Support Developer!

Pants

Pants

Pants

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Firstly, Woo hooo!!!!!!!!!!! :D

OK.

I have worked for a large energy company under various front-line departments for 6 years. I've been interested in the IS side of things for ages, as it appeals to my geeky side, but i've not done much about it. Well i've now jumped in the deep end and got a job in a team called IS Support which mainly focuses on database maintanance / quick fixes (rather than large projects) / optimisation for our various sales systems. Basically they keep things running smoothly, and when the **** hits the fan (and it does) this is the team that sorts the mess out!

I got the job because I have a good knowledge of the business (especially sales) and a good idea of what the "users" of these systems want.

But my main worry is that my technical knowledge is pretty limited. I have an:

  • Average knowledge of Access 2000 (but don't know SQL or VBA commands)
  • Mminimal knowladge of SQL Server 2005 / ASP.NET2 / VB.NET

To start with I will be mainly using Access 2000 + VBA and looking after various scheduled jobs each day (which sometimes fail), and also making various simple changes / updates to data in the sales systems. And probably a host of other day to day tasks around Access 2000.

Can anyone reccomend a really good book on Access 2000 that can take me from average to advanced, as I have 6 weeks to brush up before I start? I'm especially interested in debugging / optimisation which I know very little about. It would save me having to learn so much on the job.

In a few months I will probably be asking for book reccomendations on VB.NET / SQL / ASP.NET2 as everything is slowly being converted over. But that can wait for now!

Sorry for creating such a long thread for a simple book reccomendation...?! :o

(edit) Also are there any industry standard Development or Dabatase Maintanance methodologies that it would be worth me knowing?
 
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Firstly - congratulations. Nice to hear such a story in the current times.

I can't say I'd recommend any book for Access. When I was doing it I learned it from Google. I now s/w develop with Visual Studio 2008 and I rarely touch access these days.

Also Access 2000? That's pretty far behind the times.. Although very similar to 2003. If they ever jump to 2007 it's a horrid leap to take - make sure you get your stuff into .NET before that happens.

Also think about multiple user environments - Access doesn't cope well with multiple users and one database.

Also be aware of the security implications with access - it tends to expose a lot of connection strings if you are connecting to external databases which is never good.
 
also try and be more dynamic than restricting yourself to access, it also supports sql/mysql - sql is widely supported - oracle also supports this which is the leader in database environments.

Access is way too far behind now - I did like its approach though...

Congrats on your job :)
 
If you speak to anyone with any experience in RDBMS setups they'll laugh at Access, it is pathetic. Well done on getting the job! Learn some SQL and play about with MySQL and soon you'll be showing them why they need to use a proper RDBMS like Oracle.
Best of luck, and well done again.

Dstat
 
Just having another thought seeing as people are agreeing with my opinion of Access. Both Oracle and Microsoft do free versions of their RDBMS - why not download and have a play? You can download Visual Basic Express and have a play with that too.
 
brainchylde said:
Just having another thought seeing as people are agreeing with my opinion of Access. Both Oracle and Microsoft do free versions of their RDBMS - why not download and have a play? You can download Visual Basic Express and have a play with that too.
Click to expand...

Visual Basic isn't an RDBMS :confused:
 
Cheers guys.

I have to admit i'm a bit reluctant to start learning an old version of Access/VBA in depth, but that's what we currently use. We use some Access 97 too! :eek:

Mind you as everything is going over to SQL maybe I can get away with focusing my efforts on this.

Most of our new systems seem to use SQL Server 2005 with ASP.NET2 as a front end (accessed over intranet in IE).

I've been playing about and managed to create a SQL Server 2005 database in "Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express". I've got a simple relational database set up with a few related tables and that's about it so far.

I've also made an ASPX page in Visual Studio 2008 that can connect to the database and display some data. Nothing fancy though believe me!

Is this considered a good way to develop a daatbase? Also what part of this system is considered the RDBMS - Is it the SQL Server or the SQL Server Management Studio (or both)?

I'm not sure if we use Oracle at all. I'll have to ask tomorrow as you guys obviously think very highly of it.

Cheers!
 
Pants said:
Mind you as everything is going over to SQL maybe I can get away with focusing my efforts on this.
Click to expand...

SQL will be similar in Access - so you don't need to worry too much there.

Pants said:
I've also made an ASPX page in Visual Studio 2008 that can connect to the database and display some data. Nothing fancy though believe me!

Is this considered a good way to develop a daatbase?
Click to expand...
A lot of data driven applications are moving to the browser these days. Traditionally, applications used internally would have been Windows Forms applications but the advent of Web 2.0/Ajax and alike has allowed the browser to act more like a traditional desktop application and become more 'useable'. It's probably the future, although there are alternatives like MFC.

Pants said:
Also what part of this system is considered the RDBMS - Is it the SQL Server or the SQL Server Management Studio (or both)?
Click to expand...
.

The RDBMS is the SQL Server. Your RDBMS can hold many databases. The Server Management Studio is just a tool for managing your RDBMS' and the databases inside.

Pants said:
I'm not sure if we use Oracle at all. I'll have to ask tomorrow as you guys obviously think very highly of it.
Cheers!
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it - from a high level Oracle and SQL Server are similar beasts. You would have to dig deeper to appreciate the differences. For the purposes of learning, I think I would go with SQL Server as I find it a little simpler to use and, of course, if you are using Microsoft products such as Visual Studio or VB Express then they interface well with SQL Server.
 
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