How will Access Survive

[jasmith]

How will Access fair in a year? Two years? .... The new version of
Access seems to service non programmers as a wizard interface to
quickly create databases via a fancy wizard. Furthermore, why would
you even continue to use Access as a backend when you have a much
superior option in SQL express?

What about as a future front-end development tool? Let's get serious.
Microsoft continues to publish numerous articles and videos on how you
can whip up a workable datagrid with only a few lines of code (so much
for the argument for the RAD development tool). Bring XML and the
countless advantages of the disconnected dataset architecture in .NET
and I am more convinced that Access will start to die out (short of
support for legacy systems).

The point is not to start a riot but rather seek valid arguments on how
Access will fair in the future. Thanks in advance for your input.

Jason

[David W. Fenton]

"Allen Browne" <Al*********@Se eSig.Invalid> wrote in
news:44******** **************@ per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au :

It does look as if Microsoft is emphasizing the role of Access as
desktop database, and putting in lots of effort to make it as
usable as possible for non-programmers. But they have taken away
nothing from developers, and actually given us several useful
things as well.

It seems to me that much of the new design is aimed at FileMaker
Pro. The only things that are lacking, seems to me, is a server
version of Jet (to match FileMaker's ability to run from the server)
and ease of web distribution. The former will never happen (it would
be a SQL Server killer), and the latter is probably not possible
without major architectural changes (e.g., if forms and reports were
stored as HTML+CSS they could easily be ported to the web as long as
there was some kind of data connector that could be switched in to
replace Access in interfacing with Jet).

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

[David W. Fenton]

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly***********@ aim.com> wrote in
news:11******** **************@ u72g2000cwu.goo glegroups.com:

Posts to CDMA

Jan 1 2000 - May 23 2000: 85400
Jan 1 2006 - May 23 2006: 15900 (source -> Google Groups)

Perhaps, this indicates that Access started to die out several
years ago. Perhaps it simply means that other better sources of
help and discussion were found.

Usenet is dying. A different newsgroup that I post in, that I've
been involved in for longer than CDMA and that has been around on
Usenet since 1985, has dropped even more precipitously in number of
posts.

I don't think anyone (other than Rudoph Giuliani fans) would
seriously suggest that the drop in that newsgroup is due to
decreasing interest in MS Access.

Thus, I really don't think you can say anything about the relative
size of the Access user/programmer population based on posts on
Usenet. Most Internet users don't know anything about Usenet.

I would also add that it seems to me that there are new groups of
users coming to Access. There have been a lot of "newbie" posts
lately from people who are starting out writing unbound forms. That
suggests to me that Access is now attracting a certain number of
programmers from other backgrounds, since they have the chops to put
together unbound forms, but lack the understanding of Access that
should tell them that they are wasting their time writing unbound
forms.

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

[Rick Brandt]

David W. Fenton wrote:

ja*****@bigrive r.net wrote in
news:11******** **************@ j73g2000cwa.goo glegroups.com:

Another point worth mentioning is the built-in
deployment features of Visual Studio where the application can
automatically check for and download updates via a web server or a
central network location.

I've never understood the attraction of automatic updates. I think
they are phenomenally dangerous and turn them off in every program
that offers them (including Windows Update, the most dangerous of
them all, since a failure could disable your computer entirely).
This would be no attraction to me at all.

It depends on the context. You (the developer) bring Me (a business) an
update. That transaction need not be automatic and could pose the problems
you suggest if it were.

Now, the front end of that update needs to be distributed to 100 users in my
company. THAT update is better if automatic and in many cases needs to be
forced i.e. if you aren't on the latest version your app doesn't run at all.
There are certainly cases where allowing an older version to continue
running would cause real problems.
--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[Rick Brandt]

David W. Fenton wrote:

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly***********@ aim.com> wrote in
news:11******** **************@ u72g2000cwu.goo glegroups.com:

Posts to CDMA

Jan 1 2000 - May 23 2000: 85400
Jan 1 2006 - May 23 2006: 15900 (source -> Google Groups)

Perhaps, this indicates that Access started to die out several
years ago. Perhaps it simply means that other better sources of
help and discussion were found.

Usenet is dying. A different newsgroup that I post in, that I've
been involved in for longer than CDMA and that has been around on
Usenet since 1985, has dropped even more precipitously in number of
posts.

I don't think anyone (other than Rudoph Giuliani fans) would
seriously suggest that the drop in that newsgroup is due to
decreasing interest in MS Access.

Thus, I really don't think you can say anything about the relative
size of the Access user/programmer population based on posts on
Usenet. Most Internet users don't know anything about Usenet.

[snip]

Also if a higher percentage of users do what they should in Newsnet which is
to lurk and search before posting questions you could see a real drop in
posting activity without there necessarily being a corresponding drop in
"usage" of the group.

In a perfect world, groups targeted at beginner and intermediate levels
would eventually have very few new postings and would simply become "useful
archives".

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[rkc]

Rick Brandt wrote:

Also if a higher percentage of users do what they should in Newsnet which is
to lurk and search before posting questions you could see a real drop in
posting activity without there necessarily being a corresponding drop in
"usage" of the group.

I can vouch for this from personal experience. I don't post questions
in this ng at all. I can assure you it is not because I have never
had a question. It's because I have never had a question I could not
find an answer to with a little effort. God bless lazy people and
those with looming deadlines.

[loringdo]

Good question huh? -:). I agree a lot with Allen Browne and others on
good points. I think Access is becoming more robust for programmers
also. Because I do most of the development myself I use wizard,
add-ins, etc to make my job a lot easier. Most companies may start to
build application with Access but will still rely on programmers to
enhance or finish the project. Access is light weight portable and not
least affordable for most companies. Developing Access Pages is going
to be cutting edge working with primary interop assemblies (PIAs) that
contain the official description of the most commonly used., InfoPath
and other office products. I find that Access Pages don't have the
same versatility as static form, but hopefully from the same
environment access pages can be created with little bit more flex. I
seen snapshot of what Microsoft has shown of Access 2007, and
demonstration of what can be create through couple of the wizard. I
think Access will allow its developers to create application they only
thought of before. I am going to be died hard co-visionary of Access.
-:)

[GH]

I have to concur with Pete's comments, because I was one of those IT
people holding Access in contempt for many years (I also put Filemaker
Pro in that category). However, a year ago I was assigned to a
significant and intense Access project, and the experience really
opened my eyes. My biggest contempt, as it turns out, was not Access,
but the misuse of Access. As Allen mentioned, many users seem to
insist that Access is a good choice for access across the network and
web by large user populations, but the application just isn't designed
for the number of users typically hitting a website database. I think
the newsgroup posting numbers more likely reflect what Rick stated,
more users, even new ones, are searching for the answers before they
post the same question. The main reason I even come to this newsgroup
is looking for information to assist me in my development. If I happen
to also find a post from someone else that offers me the chance to put
in my relevant two cents, bonus!

MS Access will survive, because it is a pretty reliable product with a
strong developer base. Even when VBA is finally revamped, which I was
told by an MS programmer from Redmond (granted he worked on SQL Server
2005), was happening with the next version of Office (not sure if it
actually happened), developers will adapt. If we couldn't handle the
changes MS throws at us, we wouldn't be very successful in this
business. :-)

Now, if MS would just unbundle Access from Office, maybe it could be
treated with more respect!

- GH

[Chirag Shukla]

ja*****@bigrive r.net wrote:

How will Access fair in a year? Two years? .... The new version of
Access seems to service non programmers as a wizard interface to
quickly create databases via a fancy wizard. Furthermore, why would
you even continue to use Access as a backend when you have a much
superior option in SQL express?
Access is going to do just fine. Tiny applications work just great in
Access, especially for people that know Excel already (and they seem to
find Access friendlier). If I had a few thousand measurement stations
across the planet with their latitude and longitude and if I wanted a
client to sort, develop reports etc., I would make a decent Access
backend/frontend with a switchboard and thats it. One mdb file, a
little functionality, looks good and can be put on a floppy (who uses
them though?) and taken places.
What about as a future front-end development tool? Let's get serious.
Serious stuffs - better work with a real RDBMS. Access is not a
complete RDBMS. I have heard good things about SQL Express but I will
give it a few more months of testing before depending on it.
MySQL/Postgres are free and good. Front-end - depends on platform and
application. Simple stuffs on Windows - VB(.NET) or C#, Web -
..NET/Java, Linux - Gtk/Pl/Java. I believe .NET/Java will do good in
front-end development on desktop or the web.
Microsoft continues to publish numerous articles and videos on how you
can whip up a workable datagrid with only a few lines of code (so much
for the argument for the RAD development tool). Bring XML and the
countless advantages of the disconnected dataset architecture in .NET
and I am more convinced that Access will start to die out (short of
support for legacy systems).
I'd still use Access for tiny applications. Access 97 is still used by
quite a few. I use 2000 now and then. Who cares about 2003 if our
frontend can handle both databases?
The point is not to start a riot but rather seek valid arguments on how
Access will fair in the future. Thanks in advance for your input.

I agree with you on the fact that it is worth thinking what will happen
to Access. When I first saw MySQL, I wondered what Access will do. It
still is strong today. Some people are using Access so extensively that
they cannot even think of moving out of it. They like it (and its
surprising to see how stable Access can sometimes be...1GB database
files are doing just fine on my 1GB RAM machine). No matter how good
SQL Express or OSS products are, there are lots of tiny developments on
Access. My belief is Access isnt going anywhere.

Chirag Shukla.

[CDMAPoster]

GH wrote:

...
MS Access will survive, because it is a pretty reliable product with a
strong developer base. Even when VBA is finally revamped, which I was
told by an MS programmer from Redmond (granted he worked on SQL Server
2005), was happening with the next version of Office (not sure if it
actually happened), developers will adapt. If we couldn't handle the
changes MS throws at us, we wouldn't be very successful in this
business. :-)

That's an interesting perspective. What really grieves me about .NET
is that I agree essentially with its basic premises and philosophy. I
only mourn the loss of RAD. Perhaps, we, as Access developers are
really cheating by not convincing companies to convert the RAD "demos"
they see in Access into .NET. Personally, taking three times as long
to produce a given application is not an easy sell. This (triple the
time) may change in the future, but when all the facts are laid out,
the companies I deal with usually want to use Access until that
situation changes.

I have up to 76 simultaneous users on an administrative network and an
additional 40 or so users that connect to Access in an area common to
all. The thought of going to forms bound to linked tables, even when
restricting the recordsource to a single record, is unthinkable for me.

Access on Samba under Linux worked about three times faster than any
other combination one company tried. They spent about $100,000 on new
high speed switches, networking components and a new Active Directory
server system and still could not come close to Samba running on a $400
VIA with the old networking equipment. I.e., it took two to three
times as long to access data. To be fair, using AD on linux using LDAP
instead of using windows validation might have slowed data retrieval
also, but I suspect that the LDAP delay would be much less than with
the new system given past performance. Plus, Access on Samba did not
cause a single error. The networking guy got a serious black eye
trying to outperform linux. They spent another $50,000 for a different
server system and now I see corruption issues where there were
absolutely none before. So now, if MS wags them too hard they might
dump MS and Access instead of linux, but they love Access and will
stick with MS if they don't get jerked around too much.

Although linux has come a long way, I think MS has not capitalized on
the old school compiling that has to be done under linux. I have
compiled a lot of unix code in the past so I was prepared for playing
with source files to get Samba to install the way I wanted. Even so,
it was quite an annoyance, but the license costs for Windows server
creates a lot of room for tolerance.

Finally, I still think MS is moving away from VBA. One blog entry
talked about locked-down systems where VBA is turned off completely.
I'm seriously looking at C#, XSLT and the new XML editing tools for
dealing with the XML output of Access 12 rather than relying on custom
VBA to change the XML that is produced. I still have a long way to go
in viewing the PDC 05 videos, but I don't think my perception of MS
moving away from VBA is going to change after I'm done viewing them.
It seems to me that Access is going to survive by being changed into
something else. Except for the new false concept of what RAD is, I
actually welcome the changes.

James A. Fortune
CD********@Fort uneJames.com

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per CD********@Fort uneJames.com:

Personally, taking three times as long
to produce a given application is not an easy sell. This (triple the
time) may change in the future, but when all the facts are laid out,
the companies I deal with usually want to use Access until that
situation changes.

I'd say three times for VB6... and some have countered with 5-6.

Watching a large .NET project where I used to work, I'd venture 10x minimum for
..NET.... maybe up to 20.
--
PeteCresswell