[AccessD] Re: Teaching Access Course

Hi Robert

Good example.

Arthur Fuller did work with recipes too.
Look up the archive for "SQL Puzzle" in Mar. 2002.

The question was, given a certain mix of ingredients, how to list
which recipes could possibly be chosen ...

/gustav


> Jim,

> I think you are trying to cover way too much in too short of a time.  I 
> have taught Access, from people who were not sure of the spelling of it to 
> people who thought they knew everything there was to know about it.

> What are they wanting to accomplish?  You should tailor the sessions to the 
> purpose they want to accomplish.  For example, I am teaching a 3 hour 
> introduction to queries a week from Saturday to a class of 4 or 5 
> people.  The purpose is for them to be able to query the database for 
> themselves to get information, create mail merge lists, etc.

> Normalization itself is a two day class.  But here is the 10 minute version 
> of it.

> We are going to build a database to hold recipes. Write down on a sheet of 
> paper the things we need to store about a recipe.  Now, look at each item 
> and ask the question, "Can there EVER be more than one of this item?"  If 
> the answer is "Yes," then you will need another table to hold the data.  If 
> you follow that without wavering, you will get to 5th normal form.  ;-)

> For example "ingredient"  Can a recipe ever have more than one 
> ingredient?  Yes, then there needs to be a table to hold them.  Can an 
> ingredient ever use more than one kind of measure?  Yes.  Then the 
> measurement method needs to be in a table.  Can a recipe fit into more than 
> one category (dessert, main course, bread, etc)?  Yes.  Then there needs to 
> be a table to hold it.

> My guess would be that they want to be able to query the database and do 
> reports.  Day 1 - Queries  Day 2 - Reports  ;-)

> Robert