Re: set focus on a specific record after adding new record

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Maybe I came off too much the scold. My apologies. Now that you have
all of that information, let's try this:

Without apologizing your way into your thread, present the issue of a
thread as something that *you* want to know or learn how to do.

I admire your ambition to be digging into the books and doing your
best to learn. Let that be your focus. I believe that the way you
are applying yourself you'll be able to deliver a superior application
before the "consultant' delivers his feeble Access-Macro based effort.
Let that be your motivation to keep at it and do a superior job.

As you have already learned or are beginning to learn, Access has a
long, steep learning curve. Stay with it and you'll be amazed at what
you can do. You aren't slow, it's a reach. FWIW many of the advanced
developers, including MVPs are self-taught. Over time, my best
resources have included Access Help files, these newsgroups, lots and
lots and lots of books and lots of practice.

The invitation is still open. You can quickly determine my email by
turning my signature line into a properly formed address. Just remove
the words and the "." that don't belong. Remember to put things into
a zip file. Security will barf on an ".MDB" if it's in the open.

You wandered into political woes again... The director would be
better advised to face the issues directly and be looking for the best
way to gracefully get the guy out of your house. If he can make it
right with the grant funder he would be doing your world a favor to
get the word out on the QT. As for waiting until he finishes his
application and then tweaking it into something you can live with;
that's not a good strategy. I'll tell you more after I get your
application. I may have said in an earlier post but if I didn't: The
foundation of a good application is a good schema. Get the tables and
relationships right and you are well on your way to an enhanceable and
expandable application. Blow the schema and you are well on your way
to an application that becomes increasingly expensive and difficult to
maintain and enhance. Each flaw in the schema, when corrected forces
a re-design of everything: forms, queries, reports, etc. layered on
the tables.

My suspicion is that his schema is drastically flawed. So much better
to get it right the first time rather than go back to the table design
to correct one thing after another, over and over and over ..

If the existing application is a "test" then the documentation you
will provide is more important than ever.

By the way, developers don't create "test" applications for things
that they routinely do. "Test" applications are usually to explore
the use of unfamiliar controls or configurations such as you have
already done. Otherwise, simply design according to the specifications
and Press On!

For Access newbies I always recommend this newsgroup and

microsoft.public.access
microsoft.public.access.gettingstarted.

Thee are several others when you are ready.

Also, visit www.mvps.org/access That's "the Access Web". It's chock
full of Access lore. I believe it's the most valuable site on the web
for Access developers of all levels. There are lots of other great
sites, particularly those provided by many of the Access MVPs.

Welcome to the world of Access!

HTH
--
-Larry-
--

"jpwgh via AccessMonster.com" <u39688@uwe> wrote in message
news:7ef7e2beed002@xxxxxx
Thank you for you consideration and frankness.

I apologize if what I am doing is considered misuse of this thread.
First of
all, I am not the "developer" in question. I am an employee of a
non-profit
agency, with limited.funds I started to pick up some programming on
my own
to meet a need. I admit the database I created was a hack job and a
quick
fix to solve a problem. I did a quick fix because we already had
this
consultant working on integrating 3 areas of our organization. I
couldn't
wait until he finished working on the entire project so I got some
books and
tried to come up with a short term solution. I did come up with a
working
solution that works great. I knew nothing about programming prior
to this,
so I never questioned anything the "developer" told us. It wasn't
until I
made the request stated in this thread that I even looked at his
code.

My intention is to ask questions to learn for myself. I have been
checking
out the tech sites to find out what I can. In my database I did
all the
code myself from what I picked up from books and tech sites except
for the
requery code also listed in this thread. I asked for help with that
after
struggling with it for several weeks. Everything else in the
database worked.
I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with what I did (in 4
months) so I
thought it would be ok to ask for help. The only reason I asked for
help on
this was because the "developer" is very arrogant and condescending.
Since I
am not allowed to say anything, I thought I could put him in his
place
without saying anything. Sorry for wanting to be that way but I am
so
frustrated with the whole situation. I would change his design to
eliminate
the problem (I still would like to know how to do it since I spent
so much
time trying to figure it out). Unfortunately, I am not allowed to
do that,
at least not until after the project is done.

Now for the politics. Unfortunately, we can not "fire" him because
we are
not paying him. He is being paid from a grant from somewhere else.
Another
political problem is that we have a new director who is afraid of
looking bad.
After I voiced my concerns about the database, the director met with
the
"developer" and the agency involved with the funding to discuss my
concerns.
I was not invited to the meeting. even though this "developer"
throws around
alot of techincal terms and tries to intimidate anyone who questions
him.
The reason the new director is afraid of looking bad is that we are
too far
in the project. The feelings are it is too late to do anything now.
We
should have said something sooner. Problem was initially I was
intimidated
by him and I didn't know any better. The grant money is
considerably less
than what programmers would normally less. The old saying you get
what you
pay for. Still, that doesn't make it right.

The worst part of this is that he is designing a model to be used
for other
non-profits. That makes me sick. Most of the non-profits like us
do not
have any technical people. So since this guy talks a good talk, my
fear is
everyone will buy into it and he will go around designing crap for
everyone
else. Our director is getting irritated with me because I won't let
it go.
We plan on cutting our losses and taking whatever he gives us and
tweaking it.
The problem is nothing is said about his end product and he gets to
go around
to the other nonprofits. I probably should not have said all this
in an open
thread, but I don't care because I don't think it is right. I would
have
responded directly to you with a zip file of the database (since it
is a test
version there are no confidentially issues) but I do not know your
email.
After reading all this, I am not sure if you still would want to.
If you
think I should not seek help here, I will understand,



Larry Daugherty wrote:
You're trying to solve your political problems with technical
solutions to specific incompetencies on the part of your current
"developer". Continuing to come back to these newsgroups to
compensate for someone else's "sins" is a departure from the
purpose
of them. We try to help the *developer* with technical issues to
resolve those particular issues - one issue per thread.

You are coming back for a "bank shot", If it is gratified I
suspect
that there will be others...

I suggest that you try a different approach: At those meetings
loudly
propose that the developer in trouble visit the list of Access
newsgroups that you provide him on the spot. I'd follow that up
with
an email that lists at least this newsgroup and as many others as
you
like. Just about any technical issue with Access can be resolved
by
some responder here. Alternatively, the developer might discover
that
what s/he wants to do can't be done with Access.

If you can determine the signature that the developer uses in the
newsgroups then you can monitor what is actually asked and the
responses received.

To resolve the political issues you have to use the tools at hand
to
resolve them at the political level. Here's something scary to
consider; while it's not a given, people who are totally
incompetent
using the higher level tools provided by Access usually haven't
bothered to learn about Relational Database Management Systems.
That
implies that the schema on which s/he is trying to build
functionality
is incorrect. If s/he asks questions that are particularly jarring
there will be requests for his schema to be included in a response.
It's my guess that his schema is badly flawed and that his thread
will
end with no response. A very pertinent question to ask in a
meeting
or via email is: "Is our database normalized to at least 3rd
Normal
Form"? A qualified "Yes" might be sufficient. There are instances
where 3NF is departed for good reason. S/he should at least know
what
it means.

Here is a burning question: Are you that developer? If so, come
out
from behind cover and post your issues directly. We're not the
Access
cops.

If and when you post back, please include a paragraph or two
explaining what your application is all about, Also, list your
schema: all of your table names and the names and datatypes of
every
field in each table.

In addition you may send a zip file to my address that has the
application description and a populated copy of your application in
Access 2003 or earlier. I can look it over and give you some
feedback
not just on the schema but on the higher levels of functionality as
well. I'll treat your data as confidential,

HTH
I wrote in Dec. 07 regarding a consultant with suspect
programming skills
(majority of programming done with macros and multiple examples
of empty code)
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]

Thank you for your consideration and any feedback


http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/access-tablesdbdesign/20
0801/1

--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com

http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/access-tablesdbdesign/200801/1



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