The purpose of these tutorials is not to teach you Microsoft Access, but rather to teach you some generic information systems concepts and skills using Access. Of course, as a side effect, you will learn a great deal about the software enough to write your own useful applications. However, keep in mind that Access is an enormously complex, nearly- industrial-strength software development environ- ment. The material here only scrapes the surface of Access development and database programming.

1.1 Introduction: What is Access? Microsoft Access is a relational database manage- ment system (DBMS). At the most basic level, a DBMS is a program that facilitates the storage and retrieval of structured information on a computer’s hard drive. Examples of well-know industrial-strength relational DBMSes include
• Oracle
• Microsoft SQL Server
• IBM DB2
• Informix
Well-know PC-based (“desktop”) relational DBMSes include
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft FoxPro
• Borland dBase
1.1.1 The many faces of Access Microsoft generally likes to incorporate as many fea- tures as possible into its products. For example, the Access package contains the following elements: • a relational database system that supports two industry standard query languages: Structured Query Language (SQL) and Query By Example (QBE);

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