Best tools for refactoring ?

[Richard]

What to do when the best laid plans change and mazes of legacy are
abolished, simplified, or built anew for contemporary reality.

A preliminary database was developed for tracking material through a
variety of manufacturing procedures. For a variety of business and
reality check reasons, the names of tables and columns need to be
changed, and some previously monolithic data tables are to be further
normalized.

What are some of the best tools for tracking down the complete side
effects of changing a relationship or changing the name of a table,
column, view, form, report, etc... The perfect tool would detect
dynamically generated queries used during event handling, and data
usages as directed by meta-data stored in control tables.

TIA,
Richard

[Tom van Stiphout]

On 2 Feb 2007 05:02:12 -0800, "Richard" <ri************@devenezia.com>
wrote:

That's a tall order. I think only Biological Development Units can do
that.

-Tom.

>What to do when the best laid plans change and mazes of legacy are
abolished, simplified, or built anew for contemporary reality.

A preliminary database was developed for tracking material through a
variety of manufacturing procedures. For a variety of business and
reality check reasons, the names of tables and columns need to be
changed, and some previously monolithic data tables are to be further
normalized.

What are some of the best tools for tracking down the complete side
effects of changing a relationship or changing the name of a table,
column, view, form, report, etc... The perfect tool would detect
dynamically generated queries used during event handling, and data
usages as directed by meta-data stored in control tables.

TIA,
Richard

[Larry Linson]

As far as I know, there is no "refactoring software" for Microsoft Access.

And, as Tom said, BDUs will be required for the more complex tasks you
specify (just for my information, is there software that will do what you
request for any development software tools?) -- but the BDUs can get some
assistance from either of Speed Ferret from http://www.moshannon.com or
Find&Replace from http://www.rickworld.com, both of which will find each use
of a user-specified string anywhere in the database. I've used both in
previous versions, but haven't used the most recent versions of either one.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVPs
"Richard" <ri************@devenezia.comwrote in message
news:11*********************@h3g2000cwc.googlegrou ps.com...

What to do when the best laid plans change and mazes of legacy are
abolished, simplified, or built anew for contemporary reality.

A preliminary database was developed for tracking material through a
variety of manufacturing procedures. For a variety of business and
reality check reasons, the names of tables and columns need to be
changed, and some previously monolithic data tables are to be further
normalized.

What are some of the best tools for tracking down the complete side
effects of changing a relationship or changing the name of a table,
column, view, form, report, etc... The perfect tool would detect
dynamically generated queries used during event handling, and data
usages as directed by meta-data stored in control tables.

TIA,
Richard

[David W. Fenton]

"Larry Linson" <bo*****@localhost.notwrote in
news:8EOwh.12736$WI6.8726@trnddc04:

And, as Tom said, BDUs will be required for the more complex tasks
you specify (just for my information, is there software that will
do what you request for any development software tools?) -- but
the BDUs can get some assistance from either of Speed Ferret from
http://www.moshannon.com or Find&Replace from
http://www.rickworld.com, both of which will find each use of a
user-specified string anywhere in the database. I've used both in
previous versions, but haven't used the most recent versions of
either one.

Speed Ferret does seem to be moribund, since they have never
released an A2K3-specific version. Too bad.

It was an awfully good program.

I can't imagine that Name AutoCorrect has reduced their market,
since it JUST DOESN'T WORK.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[moshannon]

A significant part of SPEED Ferret was developed in VB6, so we've had
to rethink our development infrastructure and retool. It's been a
herculean effort. That's the main reason why this release is taking
longer than usual.

Fear not! SPEED Ferret 5 is coming, and it will support both Access
2003 and Access 2007.

Details and screen shots will be posted on www.moshannon.com in the
near future.

Bob Snyder
Black Moshannon Systems
On Feb 3, 12:23 pm, "David W. Fenton" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

"Larry Linson" <[e-mail] innews:8EOwh.12736$WI6.8726@trnddc04:

Speed Ferret does seem to be moribund, since they have never
released an A2K3-specific version. Too bad.

It was an awfully good program.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Tom van Stiphout]

On 3 Feb 2007 13:30:38 -0800, "moshannon" <rs*****@moshannon.com>
wrote:

Rick Fisher is also working on an Access 2007 version of Find &
Replace.

-Tom.

>A significant part of SPEED Ferret was developed in VB6, so we've had
to rethink our development infrastructure and retool. It's been a
herculean effort. That's the main reason why this release is taking
longer than usual.

Fear not! SPEED Ferret 5 is coming, and it will support both Access
2003 and Access 2007.

Details and screen shots will be posted on www.moshannon.com in the
near future.

Bob Snyder
Black Moshannon Systems
On Feb 3, 12:23 pm, "David W. Fenton" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>"Larry Linson" <[e-mail] innews:8EOwh.12736$WI6.8726@trnddc04:

Speed Ferret does seem to be moribund, since they have never
released an A2K3-specific version. Too bad.

It was an awfully good program.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Warren]

On Feb 2, 5:09 pm, "Larry Linson" <[e-mail]:

As far as I know, there is no "refactoringsoftware" for Microsoft Access.

One slight correction: This is not exactly a refactoring tool for
Access, but I have a refactoring tool for VB6, CodeShine
(www.codeshine.com), that you can use on VBA via cut-and-paste. It's
not exactly an ideal process, but I have found it worth doing on
occasion. If you want to use Extract Method on a VBA module, you can
create a new VB6 module, paste the entire VBA module's code into it,
refactor with CodeShine, and then paste the altered module back into
the Access project. It doesn't need to be compilable in VB6 in order
to be refactored, so you don't have to copy in any related modules or
set references.

Warren Sirota

[David W. Fenton]

"moshannon" <rs*****@moshannon.comwrote in
news:11**********************@a34g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com:

A significant part of SPEED Ferret was developed in VB6, so we've
had to rethink our development infrastructure and retool. It's
been a herculean effort. That's the main reason why this release
is taking longer than usual.

Fear not! SPEED Ferret 5 is coming, and it will support both
Access 2003 and Access 2007.

I'm so glad of that. I love Speed Ferret -- it does so much so
easily that it pays for itself the first time you use it. I was
really worried it wasn't going anywhere.

Why did you skip a 2003-only version, though?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[moshannon]

I think we got a little bit too optimistic about the schedule. In
hindsight, it is now clear that we should have added support for
Access 2003 and shipped a new version shortly after Access 2003 was
released. Instead we decided to make some significant structural
changes to the product as part of the same release. It seemed
reasonable at the time, especially since we initially received very
few requests for Access 2003 support.

The structural changes should have been delayed until after an Access
2003 release was shipped. Our mistake was in putting too many new
things into a single release.

We're proud of SPEED Ferret 5. We've worked hard to build a tool that
will pay for itself over and over by saving developers lots of time.
But we're also very sorry that we didn't ship an Access 2003 version
in a timely fashion.

Bob Snyder
Black Moshannon Systems
On Feb 4, 1:11 pm, "David W. Fenton" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

"moshannon" <[e-mail] innews:11**********************@a34g2000cwb.google groups.com:

Why did you skip a 2003-only version, though?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Larry Linson]

"Warren" <ws*****@wsdesigns.comwrote

On Feb 2, 5:09 pm, "Larry Linson" <[e-mail]:

>As far as I know, there is no "refactoringsoftware" for Microsoft Access.

One slight correction: This is not exactly a refactoring tool for
Access, but I have a refactoring tool for VB6, CodeShine
(www.codeshine.com), that you can use on VBA via cut-and-paste. It's
not exactly an ideal process, but I have found it worth doing on
occasion. If you want to use Extract Method on a VBA module, you can
create a new VB6 module, paste the entire VBA module's code into it,
refactor with CodeShine, and then paste the altered module back into
the Access project. It doesn't need to be compilable in VB6 in order
to be refactored, so you don't have to copy in any related modules or
set references.

That's interesting. It would be more interesting, perhaps, if I had VB6
installed on the development machine I actually use -- I have it on an older
machine that I rarely use any longer, except for dealing with "older
versions". I don't often have a need for "refactoring" in any case, as what
I develop is not "code intensive", generally. More often than not, my
snippets are only one or two lines (plus some error handling boilerplate),
or one logical construct, e.g. a SELECT CASE with a few cases.

I'll visit your site, though, and take a look. (I need to dig out the
keyboard and mouse pad on that old machine from under the paper I've
"temporarily" stacked there, anyway.)

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

[David W. Fenton]

"moshannon" <rs*****@moshannon.comwrote in
news:11*********************@j27g2000cwj.googlegro ups.com:

We're proud of SPEED Ferret 5. We've worked hard to build a tool
that will pay for itself over and over by saving developers lots
of time. But we're also very sorry that we didn't ship an Access
2003 version in a timely fashion.

Will the A2K7 version be backward-compatible? That is, in order to
continue supporting you will I have to use A2K7 (I have no intention
of doing so)?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[moshannon]

SPEED Ferret 5 will search, compare, document, and index:

Access 97 databases
Access 2000 databases and projects
Access 2002 databases and projects
Access 2003 databases and projects
Access 2007 databases (MDB and ACCDB)

SQL Server 7 databases
SQL Server 2000 databases
SQL Server 2005 databases

Visual Basic 6 projects
Visual Studio 2003 projects (C++, C#, VB.NET)
Visual Studio 2005 projects (C++, C#, VB.NET)

Plain Text Projects (folders containing HTML files, ASP files, etc)
Image Libraries (metadata in BMP,CUR,ICO,GIF,JPG,TIF files)
COM Type Libraries (Type information in DLL,OCX,EXE files)

SPEED Ferret can inspect any combination of projects at the same time.
For example, you can compare the Access 2002 version of the Northwind
database to the Access 97 version to find all of the structural
differences.

As I said, we've rolled a lot of new functionality into this release.
But we're not dropping support for older versions of Access, SQL
Server, and Visual Studio. (except for VB5 and SQL Server 6.5, which
are not supported in version 5)

Bob Snyder
Black Moshannon Systems
On Feb 5, 12:00 pm, "David W. Fenton" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

"moshannon" <[e-mail] innews:11*********************@j27g2000cwj.googleg roups.com:

Will the A2K7 version be backward-compatible? That is, in order to
continue supporting you will I have to use A2K7 (I have no intention
of doing so)?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[David W. Fenton]

"moshannon" <rs*****@moshannon.comwrote in
news:11********************@a75g2000cwd.googlegrou ps.com:

As I said, we've rolled a lot of new functionality into this
release. But we're not dropping support for older versions of
Access, SQL Server, and Visual Studio. (except for VB5 and SQL
Server 6.5, which are not supported in version 5)

I'm pleased. I've always loved your product and use it on a regular
basis. But I haven't upgraded in a long time.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Larry Linson]

"moshannon" <rs*****@moshannon.comwrote in message
news:11********************@a75g2000cwd.googlegrou ps.com...

SPEED Ferret 5 will search, compare, document, and index:

Access 97 databases
Access 2000 databases and projects
Access 2002 databases and projects
Access 2003 databases and projects
Access 2007 databases (MDB and ACCDB)

SQL Server 7 databases
SQL Server 2000 databases
SQL Server 2005 databases

Visual Basic 6 projects
Visual Studio 2003 projects (C++, C#, VB.NET)
Visual Studio 2005 projects (C++, C#, VB.NET)

Plain Text Projects (folders containing HTML files, ASP files, etc)
Image Libraries (metadata in BMP,CUR,ICO,GIF,JPG,TIF files)
COM Type Libraries (Type information in DLL,OCX,EXE files)

SPEED Ferret can inspect any combination of projects at the same time.
For example, you can compare the Access 2002 version of the Northwind
database to the Access 97 version to find all of the structural
differences.

As I said, we've rolled a lot of new functionality into this release.
But we're not dropping support for older versions of Access, SQL
Server, and Visual Studio. (except for VB5 and SQL Server 6.5, which
are not supported in version 5)

Bob Snyder
Black Moshannon Systems

This is, indeed, good news. I've used it with much success in the past and I
look forward to the availability of the new version.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP