What is the future direction of Access?

[Randy Harris]

Several years ago I became involved in a major Access development project.
At the time, A2K was very new and the books were rather strongly suggesting
that ADO was the future and DAO would be retired. Further evidence was the
default reference to ADO in A2K projects. I chose that route, but to this
day, am not certain it was a good choice.

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost entirely in ADO.
But, what about projects begun now in Access XP? Is the preference now back
to DAO, or is it something else? My experience shows that relying on the
books for direction can be a mistake. I would appreciate the opinions of
those who are addressing this question day to day in the "real world".

Randy Harris

[Saintor]

"The rumors of my death were greatly exagerated."
- dixit DAO.
So far I sticked to Access 97 unless the customer required something else.
No regret at all. Performance is very good. I experimented a few
alternatives, but never found such a complete/supported tool (for what I
do).
"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:BB**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com...

Several years ago I became involved in a major Access development project.
At the time, A2K was very new and the books were rather strongly suggesting that ADO was the future and DAO would be retired. Further evidence was the default reference to ADO in A2K projects. I chose that route, but to this
day, am not certain it was a good choice.

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost entirely in ADO. But, what about projects begun now in Access XP? Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else? My experience shows that relying on the
books for direction can be a mistake. I would appreciate the opinions of
those who are addressing this question day to day in the "real world".

Randy Harris

[XMVP]

As far as this newsgroup is concerned, there is no future for Access at all.

The two managers in charge of this newsgroup--Larry Linson and Tony
Toews--have not built a database in years. Linson thinks Access 97 is still
the latest version of Access, and Toews is still using a 486 computer.

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:BB**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com...

Several years ago I became involved in a major Access development project.
At the time, A2K was very new and the books were rather strongly suggesting that ADO was the future and DAO would be retired. Further evidence was the default reference to ADO in A2K projects. I chose that route, but to this
day, am not certain it was a good choice.

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost entirely in ADO. But, what about projects begun now in Access XP? Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else? My experience shows that relying on the
books for direction can be a mistake. I would appreciate the opinions of
those who are addressing this question day to day in the "real world".

Randy Harris

[Larry Linson]

"XMVP" <ac***********@hotmail.com> wrote

The two managers in charge of this newsgroup

--Larry Linson and Tony Toews. . .

This is from the disruptive poster who uses many names and anonymizers to
try to disrupt the newsgroup. He specifically detests MVPs but realizes the
credibility we have, so uses the XMVP handle for a lot of his bizarre posts.
He particularly dislikes Tony and me because we point out his more bizarre
efforts and anonymous posts when he is trying to masquerade as a responsible
poster while sabotaging the newsgroup.

There are no "managers" of unmoderated Internet newsgroups. Tony and I know
it, as does the disruptive poster but he continues to try to confuse the
issue. His claims about both of us are completely untrue.

Access has a bright future. I expect DAO will be around for a while, though
it and the Jet database engine have been placed "in maintenance mode" by
Microsoft. I am sure that there will, in time, be a replacement data access
for Jet and DAO that will be as seamless. "Classic ADO" is another dead-end.
Its successor is already being used -- ADO.NET -- in the .NET world, but
ADO.NET is not available in Access, as yet.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

[Randy Harris]

"Larry Linson" <bo*****@localhost.not> wrote in message
news:Uh*******************@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...

Access has a bright future. I expect DAO will be around for a while, though it and the Jet database engine have been placed "in maintenance mode" by
Microsoft. I am sure that there will, in time, be a replacement data access for Jet and DAO that will be as seamless. "Classic ADO" is another dead-end. Its successor is already being used -- ADO.NET -- in the .NET world, but
ADO.NET is not available in Access, as yet.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

Larry, is DAO once again the default reference in Access XP? Has Microsoft
indicated that ADO.Net will be forthcoming in Access? Is ADO.Net at all
similar to ADO? (I've looked at VB.Net, it is very different from VB). If
someone were just starting to learn Access today (that is not my situation)
what direction would you recommend? I made the switch from DAO to ADO about
3 years ago and still have misgivings.

Randy Harris

PS - Regarding the troll. I'm very pleased that the vast majority of
participants in CDMA simply ignore him. I watched another newsgroup get
destroyed by a single malicious poster because people engaged his diatribe.
The only way to effectively deal with someone like that is ignore him and
offer only an occasional explanation to newcomers, as you do.

[Douglas J. Steele]

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:mg**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com...

is DAO once again the default reference in Access XP?
Like Access 2000, by default Access 2002 only has a reference to ADO. Access
2003, however, has references to both (and the DAO reference is higher in
the list than the ADO reference)
Has Microsoft indicated that ADO.Net will be forthcoming in Access?
I've heard nothing official.
Is ADO.Net at all similar to ADO?
I've not used it yet, but from what I understand, they're not very similar.
If someone were just starting to learn Access today (that is not my situation) what direction would you recommend?

I'd continue to recommend DAO.

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://I.Am/DougSteele
(no e-mails, please!)

[David W. Fenton]

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in
news:BB**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com:

Several years ago I became involved in a major Access development
project. At the time, A2K was very new and the books were rather
strongly suggesting that ADO was the future and DAO would be
retired. Further evidence was the default reference to ADO in A2K
projects. I chose that route, but to this day, am not certain it
was a good choice.

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost
entirely in ADO. But, what about projects begun now in Access XP?
Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else? My
experience shows that relying on the books for direction can be a
mistake. I would appreciate the opinions of those who are
addressing this question day to day in the "real world".

If you're writing an application for manipulating data in a Jet MDB
file, ADO is a bloody stupid tool for it -- DAO is the natural
choice. ADO does provide a couple of minor features that aren't
available with DAO, but my belief is that you should use DAO by
default and only dip into ADO when DAO proves inadequate.

On the other hand, if your back end is SQL Server, ADO offers a
number of features that can be very helpful, if properly used. But
DAO doesn't exactly leave you in the lurch, either.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Brian Hetrick]

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote ...

Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else?

Microsoft traditionally says whatever it is doing at the moment is the
solution for the rest of eternity: ODBC, DAO, RDO, ADO, etc. But then
Microsoft also keeps maintaining and enhancing. Jet was supposed to
go to "maintenance only" mode several years ago, but has recently
gotten greatly improved ANSI compliance in SQL, performance tuning,
Unicode support, and so forth.

I personally use ADO, but that is because I like to use the new ANSI
SQL syntax that is available only through ADO: things like views,
foreign keys, etc. And straightforward ADO (a connection and a
dataset resulting from the 'Execute' method) is very easily changed
to RDO syntax and moderately easily changed to DAO if necessary
('Execute' becomes 'OpenRecordset'). The new syntax is not available
through DAO -- which I suppose is a hint that the thick wrapper of DAO
has congealed.

Brian Hetrick

[Albert D. Kallal]

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:BB**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com...

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost entirely in ADO. But, what about projects begun now in Access XP? Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else?
Actually, with access 2003, the default dao reference is back!

Of course, this is just a result of people complaining, and look how many
people have trouble and posts in this newsgroup when trying to use dao.
My experience shows that relying on the
books for direction can be a mistake.

There is never a cure all answer for everyone. About the only thing you can
do is look at the track record of the company. So, for access 2000, and
access 2002 you had to put the dao reference back in. In access 2003, now
the dao reference is included. I think this just speaks volumes about the
company, and how they simply want the product to be easy to use. It means
the company listened to developers and people..and simply realized that
stuff does use DAO...like it or not!

I would say that ADO is VERY popular. In fact, while dao is certainly better
when using JET based applications, if you write in VB, or asp web pages, or
a good deal of any MS tools, then you are using ADO as your choice.

So, ADO is/was a VERY good thing to learn, and something you would have used
in VB, or web stuff. The idea here is that you use ADO..and whatever data
engine comes along, you DO NOT have to change your code (supposedly, this
means you are Less locked into a particular engine).

As it stands now, I think that MS is stuck supporting DAO and ADO for quite
a long time.

The fact that we got a default dao ref back in a2003 simply shows that MS is
not stupid...

Things should get real fun as we start to get the .net stuff in access.....

--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn

[Larry Linson]

Randy, my views on these issues agree with Doug's, so am just posting to add
the following comments.

I only began doing anything with ADP and ADO when I had a client who needed
that kind of work. I did not find them quite as distressing as I expected,
but for normal database work, I see no real advantage, even when doing
Access clients for Microsoft SQL Server. I'm working on one now, as a matter
of fact.

In my experience Access - DAO - Jet - ODBC - SQL Server works as well or
better, and is, perhaps just because of my long experience with it, easier
for me. And, it will work with any ODBC-compliant server database.

If I understand correctly, there are some Microsoft "objects" of various
kinds that you can access with ADO in addition to databases. I have not had
occasion to need that functionality.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

[Steve]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 01:10:25 GMT, "Albert D. Kallal"
<Pl*******************@msn.com> wrote:

<SNIP>

Things should get real fun as we start to get the .net stuff in access.....

--

Albert,

Are you referring to VB.net (or maybe VBA.net) or ADO.net or both?

I do find it interesting that Microsoft packaged the Access Developer
Extensions (e.g. run-time) with VB.Net and Microsof Visual Studio
Tools, but, for the life of me, I can't figure what advantage that
VB.Net has over VBA for Access development.

Steven

[Bernard Peek]

In message <40**************@news.westnet.com>, Steve <st***@nospam.com>
writes

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 01:10:25 GMT, "Albert D. Kallal"
<Pl*******************@msn.com> wrote:

<SNIP>

Things should get real fun as we start to get the .net stuff in access.....

--

Albert,

Are you referring to VB.net (or maybe VBA.net) or ADO.net or both?

I do find it interesting that Microsoft packaged the Access Developer
Extensions (e.g. run-time) with VB.Net and Microsof Visual Studio
Tools, but, for the life of me, I can't figure what advantage that
VB.Net has over VBA for Access development.

My guess is that when the transition to .NET is completed it will be
possible to use any of the supported languages in macros, including VB
and C#. The object code will be decompilable into any of the supported
languages, in theory making any code maintainable by programmers
familiar with any language.

This might take a while.

I don't know how well C# is doing as a language. The macro language in
the MS Office programs has to be usable by someone whose primary skill
is not programming. Can we expect accountants to be trained in C# as a
scripting language for their spreadsheets? If they are and C# replaces
VB as the default beginners language then VBA might never need to be
converted to .NET at all.

--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

[Randy Harris]

I would like to express my sincere thanks to each of you that responded to
my request for this information. The replies were very informative.

Randy Harris
"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:BB**********************@newssvr28.news.prodi gy.com...

Several years ago I became involved in a major Access development project.
At the time, A2K was very new and the books were rather strongly suggesting that ADO was the future and DAO would be retired. Further evidence was the default reference to ADO in A2K projects. I chose that route, but to this
day, am not certain it was a good choice.

I now know that the predictions of the demise of DAO were entirely
premature. I'm still working with A2K exclusively, almost entirely in ADO. But, what about projects begun now in Access XP? Is the preference now back to DAO, or is it something else? My experience shows that relying on the
books for direction can be a mistake. I would appreciate the opinions of
those who are addressing this question day to day in the "real world".

Randy Harris

[James R]

I have not worked in Access for 5 years now (different employer,
different projects). I now work with VB.Net and ADO.Net onto SQL Server
2000.

ADO.Net is very different to ADO and takes a while to get used to. (Some
better code examples in the help files would help!). The biggest
difference is that all the ADO.Net objects are designed for client side
operations (think disconnected recordsets). This is great for
performance in web and client/server apps, but I imagine of little
benefit to Access.

Hope this helps a little.

James

*** Sent via Devdex http://www.devdex.com ***
Don't just participate in USENET...get rewarded for it!