References, Protocols, and Language Specifications
Knowing who to trust on the internet is an important skill in the year of our Lord 2022.
It's easy to search for something with Google or DuckDuckGo, but how do you know which results to use? If I want a list of all the reserved words in VBA, should I rely on:
- The Stack Overflow answer posted by ms_sux that lists only nine keywords:
DO,NOT,USE,VBA,IT,IS,A,GARBAGE,LANGUAGE - A PDF shared on reddit by OG_Demosthenes
- Keywords (Visual Basic for Applications) from the Office VBA reference
- Section 3.3.5.2 of the VBA Language Specification, Reserved Identifiers and IDENTIFIER
As someone who likes to have authoritative answers to these sorts of questions, I love the fact that they are now easily available online...but only if you know where to look.
With that in mind, here are a few such resources that you may find helpful as an Access developer:
VBA Language Specification
- [MS-VBAL]: VBA Language Specification
References
- Office VBA Reference
- Access VBA Reference
- VBA Language Reference
- Office Library Reference (including Ribbons and CommandBars)
- Microsoft Jet SQL Reference
- Microsoft OLE DB (ADO)
- Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
- [MS-ERREF]: Windows Error Codes
SQL Server Protocols
- [MS-ODBCSTR]: ODBC Connection String Structure
- [MS-OLEDBSTR]: OLEDB Connection String Structure
COM Protocols
- [MS-OAUT]: OLE Automation Protocol
- [MS-COM]: Component Object Model Plus (COM+) Protocol
- [MS-DCOM]: Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) Remote Protocol
- [C706]*: Remote Procedure Call (including Interface Definition Language)
* Requires free registration
Windows API Calls
User Suggestions
Let me know in the comments below what other authoritative references, protocols, and language specifications you use in your own work.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
UPDATE [2022-04-12]: Added SQL Server Protocols section (h/t Ben Clothier).
UPDATE [2022-08-22]: Added Windows API Calls section with link to Windows Data Types (h/t Ben Clothier).