Throwback Thursday: October 2, 2025
Today's edition of Throwback Thursday is all about subtlety. The subtle differences between + and &; between . and !; between IsNull() and Is Null; and between IIf and IIf.
With over a million words scattered across more than 1,500 articles on this blog, you've probably missed a few things here.
That’s why each week in "Throwback Thursday," we’ll revisit some standout posts. Expect a blend of my personal favorites, insightful articles from other great minds, and a touch of coding humor to keep things light.
Highlights from NoLongerSet.com
Concatenating Strings in VBA: Plus (+) vs. Ampersand (&)
Both the ampersand and the plus sign operators can be used to join strings in VBA. Clever developers can use this to their advantage.
Mike Wolfe
Bang! Dot. Default
Three ways to reference form and report controls. Which way is best?
Mike Wolfe
T-SQL ISNULL() vs. VBA IsNull() vs. Jet IS NULL vs. Access VBA Nz()
How do I check thee for NULL? Let me count the ways.
Mike Wolfe
The IIf() Function vs. The IIf() Statement
They may look identical, but there is a very important difference in how they get evaluated.
Mike Wolfe
Wisdom from Around the Web
The Bang! (Exclamation Operator) in VBA
One of the most peculiar aspects of Visual Basic for Applications in the ! operator, called the “bang”. It is particularly common in code for Microsoft Access, where you may see things like this: […
Microsoft Access tips: Optimizing queries
How to get JET (the database engine in Microsoft Access) to execute queries quickly
Developer Humor
Average Familiarity
Cover image generated by Ideogram
