[AccessD] more on early versus late binding

On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 02:55:50PM -0400, Susan Harkins wrote:
> > 
> > My question is -- does checking a reference or modifying a reference 
> > using the Reference object and its many properties and methods fall 
> > into either category?
> 
> No.
> 
> From a Knowledge Base article on Access:
> 
>      "Dim objAccess As Access.Application"
>      This type of declaration is called early binding, which is fastest.
> 
> The article's example of late binding is
> 
>           Dim objAccess As Object
> 
> "Binding" refers to binding a variable to an object. Setting a reference
> tells your code where a predefined class can be found. Of course, you've got
> to set a reference to do early binding, so the two tend to get mixed
> together.
> 
> ===========Interesting take -- the terminology's the thing... :) So, the
> References collection and Reference objects are just explicit referencing --
> nothing to do with binding other than it enables early binding -- OK. 

Right. Early and late binding are generic coding concepts; they have nothing to do with Microsoft or the Reference collection. The line
     lngWibble = 47
is an example of early binding; the variable is bound to the specific value when the code is written. Note that the Reference collection isn't involved. The line
     lngWibble = ReadSomeFileAndFetchWibbleValue()
is late binding. The variable isn't bound to the specific value until the code is run. Generally, late binding gives you more flexibility and early binding gives you more speed.