Where are the Access Developers?

[TC]

I'd like to open a discussion about the state of the industry. For the
past year, I've been unable to find competent Access developers
available for hire. I'm worried about that.

I think there's great demand right now, and that's keeping the good
developers busy, but that's not enough to explain the situation.
Whenever I post an Access job, I get lots of responses from .NET
developers, back-end database people, and web developers. They all have
the attitude that "I don't really do Access application development,
but Access is easy, so I can handle your job." (No!) The message I'm
getting is that people are choosing to build their skills in .NET, in
back-end database work, and in web development, even though the market
is well-served in those fields, but they aren't building their skills
in Access fast enough to keep up with the demand.

If that is indeed what is happening, I can't find a good explanation
why. Sure, Access has a lightweight reputation, and people don't see it
as a career-maker -- but that has always been the case, yet somehow
there have always been plenty of Access developers in the past. What
has changed now? I can't help but wonder if Access's star has faded to
the point where job seekers eschew it as old technology. That would be
a shame, because I think it will be a very long time before Access
loses its market niche.

Anyway, those are my comments. I wonder if other Access professionals
have made similar (or conflicting) observations.
-TC

[Lyle Fairfield]

I think it is not fair that Dev should be held up to ridicule beause of
an opinion I ventured.

****
A function which can be used to check the existence of either a file or
a directory is quite useful, in my opinion.
****
It seems there is some agreement among those who write about Access on
the web.

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 115 for fIsFileDIR. (0.02 seconds)
Searched all groups Results 1 - 10 of 48 for fIsFileDIR. (0.11 seconds)

****
But perhaps the copyright was forgotten.

Web Results 1 - 9 of about 17 for fIsFileDIR Dev Ashish. (0.04 seconds)

Searched all groups Results 1 - 10 of 10 for fIsFileDIR Dev Ashish
(0.08 seconds)
****
In any case I shall be waiting and watching for the superior function.

[Lyle Fairfield]

David W. Fenton wrote:

But Dev is one of Lyle's Great Ones Who Once Walked the Earth here
among us mere mortals!

Yes, he is.

[Larry Linson]

"David W. Fenton" wrote

I can't imagine that .NET developers would have an
understanding of using Access the way it is intended,
with bound data.
That's been the case for Access' whole life... if the people came from what
was considered a "normal developer" background, they were "babes in the
woods" with regard to databases. They didn't understand Queries or SQL with
Joins, so did a lot of unnecessary work. Add to that the problem that the VB
and C/C++ interface to Jet didn't work well with bound controls...

Actually, .NETters may be a little more enlightened, as Microsoft has
included SQL Server in the ".NET" and "developer" categories. The DBAs and
SQL Server developers have helped the VB.NET and C# crowd to understand
"database" to some degree. On the other hand, I am not sure that the
decision to enhance SQL Server by including the .NET languages along with
T-SQL wasn't a holdover from the "Duh, whutz a database?" days.
They are likely to be looking for complicated data
grids, and want to do things mostly unbound and
avoiding Jet because they have prejudices built up
from working in a different environment.

Yep, I occasionally attend some meetings where .NET is discussed and it
amazes me that some presumably-knowlegeable business developers act as if
"glitz and glitter" and non-standard ways of presenting data to the user
actually are useful in solving business problems.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

[rkc]

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

A function which can be used to check the existence of either a file or
a directory is quite useful, in my opinion.
****
Lyle, it's the thinest of thin wrappers around the Dir() function.

A name change.
In any case I shall be waiting and watching for the superior function.

I'll try to think up a better name.

[David W. Fenton]

"Larry Linson" <bo*****@localh ost.not> wrote in
news:fffAf.86$M e5.55@trnddc05:

"David W. Fenton" wrote

I can't imagine that .NET developers would have an
understanding of using Access the way it is intended,
with bound data.

That's been the case for Access' whole life... if the people came
from what was considered a "normal developer" background, they
were "babes in the woods" with regard to databases. They didn't
understand Queries or SQL with Joins, so did a lot of unnecessary
work. Add to that the problem that the VB and C/C++ interface to
Jet didn't work well with bound controls...

Actually, .NETters may be a little more enlightened, as Microsoft
has included SQL Server in the ".NET" and "developer" categories.
The DBAs and SQL Server developers have helped the VB.NET and C#
crowd to understand "database" to some degree. On the other hand,
I am not sure that the decision to enhance SQL Server by including
the .NET languages along with T-SQL wasn't a holdover from the
"Duh, whutz a database?" days.

I agree with all of that.

But none of it has anything to do with *data-bound* controls, which
until recently, were hardly found at all in any MS products other
than Access. Well, that's not entirely true -- there have been
data-bound controls for VB, but my understanding was that they wree
substantially harder to use than Access's bound forms/controls, and
that many non-Access developers just didn't have the right kind of
thinking for bound data.

This is where the WE MUST USE UNBOUND FORMS!!!! hysteria comes from,
I think, as well as the idiotic resistance to Jet.

They are likely to be looking for complicated data
grids, and want to do things mostly unbound and
avoiding Jet because they have prejudices built up
from working in a different environment.

Yep, I occasionally attend some meetings where .NET is discussed
and it amazes me that some presumably-knowlegeable business
developers act as if "glitz and glitter" and non-standard ways of
presenting data to the user actually are useful in solving
business problems.

I'm just going on what I read of the technologies and the kinds of
issues that people coming to this newsgroup seem to bring.

Acess is different.

And in a good way.

But many of them can't abandon habits of that that they've acquired
in the other development environments. In those other environments,
I have not doubt that their habits are superb and crucial to getting
things done efficiently. With Access, they have to change they way
they think, or they will always end up fighting against the basic
architecture of the whole development platform.

Thus, I don't really think that the community of .NET developers is
going to be a fertile ground for finding potential Access
developers, except insofar that some portion of them will be quite
smart and adaptable and have a strong understand of database
interaction that will carry over nicely into Access.

But I don't know that there will be any higher numbers of those
types of people than there always have been in any non-Access
development environment.

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

[Tim Marshall]

rkc wrote:

Lyle, it's the thinest of thin wrappers around the Dir() function.

True. But, if it were not for that entry on the Access web a number of
years ago (98 or 99, I believe), I would not have been able to do some
of the things I did then.

So I'm grateful it was there for me when I needed it. Now of course, it
takes more effort for me to sneeze than it does to use the dir()
function. But not back then.

And I think the comments on it you're sort of disparaging were just
standard bolierplate (a ha! Thanks to Terry for explaining that term to
me a few months ago!) 8)

--
Tim http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^ "Whatcha doin?" - Ditto "TIM-MAY!!" - Me

[rkc]

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

I think it is not fair that Dev should be held up to ridicule beause of
an opinion I ventured.

My ridicule was triggered by the copyright notice in that trivial piece
of code. I see now, after browsing the site at mvps for a bit, that the
copyright notices are probably something that was decided should be put
in all the code posted there.

[Stephen Lebans]

You just don't get it do you. There are a handful of us who have published a
lot of code over the years. If we do not include a copyright notice then
several things are guaranteed to happen.

1) Our code will be reposted on someone else's site as their own.

2) Our code will be packaged and sold on an Access Utilities CD.

Does a notice of copyright stop every individual seeking to gain something
from our work? Definately not, but it does stop some of them. Further it
gives us some basis to go after the most blatant misuse of said code.

Does the intellectual property of Dev's source code you posted warrant a
notice of copyright? By itself, certainly not. As part of Dev's larger body
of work...yes. As part of a routine to ensure each published
function/project is copyrighted to try to protect against the two issues
outlined above...yes.

I would point out how this could happen to all of the source code you have
posted over the years, but that's right, you haven't posted any.

--

Stephen Lebans
http://www.lebans.com
Access Code, Tips and Tricks
Please respond only to the newsgroups so everyone can benefit.
"rkc" <rk*@rochester. yabba.dabba.do. rr.bomb> wrote in message
news:YO******** *************@t wister.nyroc.rr .com...

David W. Fenton wrote:

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly***********@ aim.com> wrote in
news:11******** **************@ g43g2000cwa.goo glegroups.com:

I became a member of the group (Access Developers) when there were
many bright, capable and proud Access Developers, and when there
was pride in new ideas. I think the number of such persons is,
perhaps, less than twenty per cent of its peak, and the pride is
almost non-existent. Many of those remaining have little to
contribute except the same tired ideas they have repeated over and
over again, since they learned them from someone else who has
moved on, and some persons here with the strongest reputations
have never contributed an original idea to the Access community.

This is so much bullshit unless you name names, Lyle.

I completely disagree with it.

This is a example of code that was thought to be so brilliant
by the pioneers of Access that it needed to be copyrighted.

'************** *** Code Start *************** ****
'This code was originally written by Dev Ashish
'It is not to be altered or distributed,
'except as part of an application.
'You are free to use it in any application,
'provided the copyright notice is left unchanged.
'
'Code Courtesy of
'Dev Ashish
'
Function fIsFileDIR(stPa th As String, _
Optional lngType As Long) _
As Integer
'Fully qualify stPath
'To check for a file
' ?fIsFileDIR("c: \winnt\win.ini" )
'To check for a Dir
' ?fIsFileDir("c: \msoffice",vbdi rectory)
'
On Error Resume Next
fIsFileDIR = Len(Dir(stPath, lngType)) > 0
End Function
'************** *** Code End *************** ******

[rkc]

Stephen Lebans wrote:

I would point out how this could happen to all of the source code you have
posted over the years, but that's right, you haven't posted any.

Nothing brilliant.

[Larry Linson]

"David W. Fenton" wrote

. . . there have been data-bound controls for VB,
but my understanding was that they were
substantially harder to use than Access's bound
forms/controls, and that many non-Access devel-
opers just didn't have the right kind of
thinking for bound data.

Both of these are _under_statemen ts, I think. The VB data bound controls not
only were harder to use, they didn't work all that well... and that
difficulty was compounded by the "non-bound-data" thinking of most VB
developers.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP