Microsoft Access 2010 Tutorials
Accessing Your Data / Access & SQL
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Subtitles of the Movie (Microsoft Access 2010 / Accessing Your Data / Access & SQL)
In this video I want to discuss a really confusing topic for a lot of people, and that is this business of Access and how it uses SQL. Well, let's start off with what SQL is. S-Q-L, normally pronounced sequel, is a reference to the Structured Query Language. Now this is a standard database language that has been used. It actually traces its roots back to the 1970's and Western Electric, Bell Labs, all those nerds, and this just has become the de facto standard for how we talk to databases. Now here's the marketing term that you're going to see and hear and that is that Access 2010 supports SQL. Now the reality is, what you see on the screen here, there's a one word difference. Access 2010 supports Access SQL. Now that is a version, or a flavor of SQL. Now, one of the things you will learn, you may already know, is there are a lot of different flavors or versions of SQL out there, and this Access 2010 version is different from all of those other ones. And they're all different from each other, alright? Welcome to IT one more time. Now the Access 2010 version does not comply with ANSI SQL 92 specifications. Now ANSI SQL 92 specifications are the industry standard generally accepted best practices of the minimum functionalities that the SQL language should be providing. Well, for example, the Access 2010 doesn't comply with all of those, but then you get into situations like Microsoft's SQL Server product does comply with ANSI SQL 92 specifications. But then it goes beyond that and it has functionalities in there that exceed the specifications. And then you have PL SQL, the version that's used by like Oracle. It complies with SQL 92, and then it adds its own little cool features that are different from Transact SQL, that are different from Access 2010. Then there's MySQL, SQLite, and all these, and there's just enough differences to drive you nuts. And so, you'll just have to kind of get comfortable with the version of Access SQL which, by the way, you may also hear it referred to as Jet SQL in reference to the Jet database that's been used by Access for years. Now, since we've got our own kind of little version of SQL there are minor differences. Now here's the bad news. Those minor differences, they're probably maybe 15 percent of the different things that you do here, so what that means is, about 85 percent of everything you learn about SQL, writing these queries in Access 2010, will directly correlate over and have value if you ever move up to a Microsoft SQL Server installation or an Oracle situation, OK, or a MySQL installation. But those minor differences can really drive you crazy, OK? Now the bad news about this is that you will kind of start to think a certain way about SQL. Now here's the thing you need to remember. All SQL 2010 queries are SQL queries, and there is a way, and I'm going to show it to you when we dig into the interfaces, on how every query that you build in that Query Builder Tool you can very easily right-click and see that query in the Access SQL version. And, again, this is where you want to get to. You want to get to the point that you can just open that up and just type out a SQL query and understand what it's doing. And the more you do that, the more you're going to learn how to get exactly what you want out of that database, in some really cool creative ways, to make your report building a lot easier, to make the use of your back end database, which is Access in this instance, a whole lot more efficient, and all those things, OK? So, just wanted you to know, are you using SQL? Yes. Are you using Transact SQL, or PL SQL? No. Not to worry though. About 85 percent of what you're learning here will transfer directly over into that and then you will spend a little time learning whatever it is that's different, alright? So, that's what's going on with Access as a product, and SQL as the programming language.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Microsoft Access 2010 |
| Author: | Mark Long |
| SKU: | 34224 |
| ISBN: | 1-936334-91-7 |
| Release Date: | 2011-05-12 |
| Duration: | 9 hrs / 121 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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