Calling all Access book authors

Published 06 March 08 09:01 AM

One thing I have learned over the years of shipping Access is that book authors turn out to be some of the best sources of feedback on our future plans and a steady stream of bugs. Last release Jeff Conrad, John Viescas, Roger Jennings, and Martin Reid pelted me with constant feedback about things that needed to be fixed and/or changed. The economic incentive combined with the tight deadlines lead authors into the product much earlier than most other developers. As part of our internal effort to ensure we are building the right product, the team plans on communicate under NDA some of the next version plans to partners, developers, and authors. The goal is to gather feedback that will make the next release even better.

I'm looking to compile a list of people that have written about Access in the past and are interested in writing about Access 14. If this fits you, use the email link to send us your name, previous books, and email address. We will contact you with more details about how to get involved.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

by clintc
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Comments

# Rocky Smolin said on March 7, 2008 9:19 AM:

I am an Access developer.  You can see summaries of the kinds of applications I have developed over the last ten years using Access.

I was sent your link by Dan Waters at Apress, as they are about to publish my book "From Program To Product: Turning Your Code Into a Saleable Product".  

While not an Access book specifically, all of the examples in the book are drawn from Access applications I have developed.

I would be happy to participate.

With regards,

Rocky Smolin

Beach Access Software

# Rocky Smolin said on March 7, 2008 10:17 AM:

Oops. my bad.  Dan Waters doesn't work at Apress.  He's one of our AccessD list members.

Rocky

# Colin Banfield said on March 8, 2008 8:23 PM:

Speaking of Access book authors.  Some have done a terrible, terrible job updating their books for Access 2007.  Access 2007 Bible and Access 2007 AIO Desk Reference for Dummies (or idiots, if you purchase this book) are the worst I've seen to date.  Interesting coincidence that both these books were written by multiple authors and both are from Wiley Publishing.  It appears that everyone (authors, technical editors and project editors) were on vacation for the entire Office 2007 Beta cycle....Very shameful.

# David Nealey said on March 11, 2008 2:11 AM:

Colin may be onto somthing with his comment that some authors have not done such a good job with their books about Access 2007.  I own a couple A2007 books myself and I have mixed feelings.

One of the books mentions the Attachment data type but says nothing about using it with music files such as wma files.  I have always wanted to tell users of my applications when they have done something wrong with sound.  Why should they not hear a growling bear when they enter a date value incorrectly?  

Two of my books say nothing about multivalue fields.  However, "For Dummies" does discuss them but tries to get users not to use them by saying "If you want to do complicated analysis..."  Well I don't buy books to have the authors (four of them in this case) tell me not to do something.  I want to know about shortcomings and I want a work around.  

So Clint using authors of previous versions of Access books to help the team decide what to put in the next version of Access may not be the only way to understand users' needs.  Some of these folks are more interested in the status quo than innovating Access.

I personnally want more ways to manipulate graphics in Access.  The next version of Access should have built in dashboard and scorecard capabilities.  It also automatically create 3rd normal form for most databases.  And the next version should allow users define how Access splits a form in a main and subform, Why can't the user tell Access to put the datasheet on the top?

Great job with Access 2007 by the way.  It's frustrating at times when you have work with both Access 2003 (at work) and 2007 (at home).

My two cents.

LDN

# clintc said on March 12, 2008 11:50 PM:

Thanks for the feedback David. We try not to use just one audience as our only source of feedback. We try to get feedback from everyone ranging from ISVs, professional developers, partners, template users, IT departments, web developers, etc. We try to blend this feedback into a release that benefits the broadest audience of users. Always fun. thanks again for the comment.

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