"Lyle Fairfield" <ly***********@aim.comwrote in
news:11**********************@j27g2000cwj.googlegr oups.com:
On Feb 27, 6:20 pm, "David W. Fenton"
<XXXuse...@dfenton.com.invalidwrote:
>"onedaywhen" <jamiecoll...@xsmail.comwrote
innews:11*********************@k78g2000cwa.google groups.com:
What about, for example, back in 2000 when the "Access
development and support team at Microsoft" were saying things
such as, "In previous versions of Access, Data Access Objects
(DAO) was the primary data access method. That has now changed.
Although DAO is still supported, the new way to access data is
with ADO." (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/
en-us/library/aa140015(office.10).aspx)? My impression is that
you took the "no longer recommended" path and stuck with DAO,
even for new projects. Isn't it reasonable for someone to take
the same approach now with ADP, ADO, etc?
No, it is not.
HTH.
(think about the difference between a native technology and a
translation layer)
David has used ADO not at all, or very little.
I tried it out. I've worked with ADO code in existing apps. I've
read tons of documentation with ADO code (and it's ugly
stepchildren, like JRO). I've been doing all of these things since
1999.
He has not studied it.
I studied it extensively in the early days, when I first got the ADH
for Access 2000. Given my client base, it was of no use to me. Had I
apps with SQL Server back ends, I would likely have used ADO for
certain operations in that context.
He has neither the skills nor the experience to implement it, yet
he constantly denigrates it and expresses absolute opinions about
it.
You don't have to be an architect to tell that a house is falling
down.
David is not alone. He is joined by MVPs and other experienced
Access developers. I often wonder why. Is it because they are
inherently conservative and do not trust this new (what 1998?)
technology?
It was obvious that the ADO-everywhere push by Microsoft with the
release of A2K was a mistake for Jet projects. It was obvious to me
that the whole basis of ADPs (i.e., a Jet-less front end to server
data) was based on an unjust prejudice against Jet, caused by
ignorance and misunderstanding of Jet by developers who never
bothered to learn how to use it properly.
The problems with ADPs emerged quickly. Developers like Steve
Jorgensen tried very hard to make ADPs work and he was no slouch in
the programming department -- a very smart guy. If he couldn't make
it work, then nobody could. And he gave up on ADPs completely after
the second version fixed some bugs while adding new ones.
Is it
because they have a cozy business based upon Access and DAO?
I never criticized ADO in a non-Jet context. Ever. I only criticized
the ADO-with-Jet approache, which was always completely nonsensical.
I also criticized (as above) the philosophical foundation for the
introduction of the ADP (i.e., "avoid Jet at all costs"). As it
turns out, Microsoft has now adopted the very same position I was
advocating back in 1999-2000 with regard to ADO and ADPs.
Is it
because they do not have the intellectual capacity to keep several
technologies active in their brains at the same time? I don't
know.
I used the technologies that were appropriate for my clients, none
of whom use SQL Server. I learned to work with SQL Server because I
saw the need for upsizing with some of my clients. But here almost 8
years later, none of my clients have upsized (even though I've
suggested that it would be a good idea to consider it very
seriously) because Jet has worked so well with the apps I've written
for them that they just can't justify the conversion and admin
expenses.
It didn't take a genius to understand that the recommendation by MS
to use ADO with Jet data was a mistake. It didn't take a polymath to
see that the basic idea behind ADPs was problematic.
I
don't care. I can and have used DAO and ADO extensively. I have
forgotten more about DAO than many of its champions know; I have
used ADO more extensively than most. Each is a fine technology.
And I've never said ADO was a bad technology *in the proper
context*. Jet is *not* the proper context for it.
I like ADO;
it has a broad list of capabilities and it has a broad list of
situations in which it can be used.
As a successor to ODBC it's quite good.
The notion that it is dead is
absurd.
It is dead, Lyle. MS has moved on to ADO.NET and ADO is not being
developed any more.
DAO *was* dead in 1999, but it's alive again with the release of
A2K7 because MS wised up. It's not going to be "classic DAO,"
though, but a new version that will likely be updated for
compatibility with the new data format.
But when it's advantageous to use DAO, I use DAO.
But Lyle, that's precisely the argument I made for DAO from the very
beginning. I have always said that DAO was appropriate for Jet data,
though ADO was useful with Jet for a handful of features that DAO
didn't offer.
That has been my position from the beginning.
I *never* criticized the use of ADO in ADPs or with SQL Server data.
But once MS moved on to ADO.NET, classic ADO was clearly a legacy
technology, and the whole "learn it because it's the future"
justification for utilizing it in Jet-based apps went away entirely
(it was always a very weak argument).
What I do
care about and think that this newsgroup avoids is not the future
of ADO, nor of DAO. It is the future of Microsoft. Ten years ago
Microsoft did everything better; it was vibrant and it was
developing technologies which were needed and wanted. Today it is
developing redundant technologies to hawk.
I would agree with this. Office 97 was an amazing platform. But with
A2K, MS abandoned many of the promises of A97 because it wanted to
extend itself into the Enterprise market. And the design of A2K was
driven by that agenda, instead of what was best for the existing
base of Access developers and users.
Michael Kaplan published that article showing how the emperor had no
clothes and he took lots of heat from MS for it. But history has
borne out his judgments pretty darned well.
And that was the point at which I lost faith in Microsoft, because
it was clear that their priorities no longer matched those of my
client base.
I have learned all about .Net except
for one tiny thing: where I would want to use it.
I think it's obvious where .NET is a good platform -- for complex
browser-based apps. The whole CLR is a bust, though, in my opinion.
I don't see people using it to write cross-platform apps at all.
Oh I know, it's
Superior! And it may be for some. But I have not found that it is
superior for an experienced programmer/developer. And no, I don't
like apps which can do in ten thousand lines what I used to do in
eight (no, not eight thousand lines, eight lines).
On this issue you sound very much like I did in 1999 in regard to
A2K.
That amuses me a great deal.
The computer on which I am writing has Windows and its associated
technologies such as Internet Explorer installed. But it is fully
provisioned with other [FREE] software that is not Microsoft. How
much am I missing Microsoft? Not at all? What have I been unable
to do that I could do with Microsoft ? Not a thing. How many
crashes/ failures have I had with this new software during
February? None. How often and big are the updates? I don't know
because invariably the updates are so simple and swift that I
forget that they happened. I re-installed Windows XP from the
original OEM cds last week and was hit by a total of 113 updates.
One hundred and thirteen! Next I turned on a new Vista computer.
Ah, I thought, they'll be sure to have this very annoying updating
cured. WRONG! Seven updates were required. After three weeks there
were SEVEN F___KING updates required. SEVEN F___KING updates
required after three weeks of availability.
I see that as a *good* thing. MS is releasing patches for
vulnerabilities when they are found, unlike the days when MS would
ignore security issues for months and years. Criticizing MS for
these updates is really counterproductive, in my opinion. MS should
be praised for them.
(Sorry, it seems I have repeated myself) Is this
Microsoft company a JOKE or what?
It's not DAO or ADO that is deficient or dying. They're both great
in Microsoft land. But the rain isn't falling on Microsoft land
much any more. And the soil is drying up. And there are skeletons
on the plains. No one is noticing. But someday soon we will look
at the old vista we remember, and it won't be the same.
I think MS is going to be around at least until I retire. That's at
least 20 years in the future. It won't be the same MS as it is
today, but I'd bet it still has significant market share.
--
David W. Fenton
http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com
http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/ 
