[AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL

Charlotte Foust cfoust at infostatsystems.com
Thu Sep 29 12:48:12 CDT 2005


That's why MS is investing so heavily in wizards, Jim.  They're aimed at
the power users.

Charlotte Foust


-----Original Message-----
From: Hale, Jim [mailto:Jim.Hale at fleetpride.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:23 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL


What worries me is that, despite all the words to the contrary, MS
doesn't really understand the power user community. Power users are
fundamentally task oriented as opposed to application development
oriented. This means for any given assignment the user has to weigh
completion of the task with the required "investment" in time, etc., to
learn new ways to do things faster/more accurately. For example, do I
cut and paste numbers from existing spreadsheets to get the boss his
numbers or do I learn how to create a pivot table? For those willing to
invest the incremental time the rewards can be great because the new
skill can lead to immense productivity. The key word is incremental. The
typical power user can seldom break away for a week or more to go to
seminars, conferences, etc. so the acquisition of new skills is truly
small steps at a time. Like the power of compounding, however, over time
(years in my case) the acquired skills can add up to something
substantial. 

What I have always liked about Office is the unique blend of
capabilities available to all users. It tremendously narrowed the Great
Divide between the IT tribe and the User tribe because users could be
much more self sufficient. From spreadsheet to pivot table to Access
table to wizards and macros to eventually full fledged VBA there exists
a power path for those willing to climb it. A power user could actually
become a developer if so inclined. My first impression of the new
paradigm is that the chasm has widened again and that users will once
again be relegated to their little pond. For any functionality outside
of that they will have to go hat in hand to the IT powers that be.
Shades of the 70s! The user ghetto may be fancier but it is a ghetto all
the same. Take the word from someonme who has struggled to achieve self
sufficieny for 30 years, starting with the IBM 360. Power users had a
fighting chance for independence with tools like VBA. Are they going to
invest the time to learn Net? I doubt it. How sad.

Jim Hale

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Dettman [mailto:jimdettman at earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 2:34 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL


For those interested, some tid bits

http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF201_Harris.ppt
http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF302_Dhanjal.ppt

http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF310_Morton.ppt
http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF415_Hatoun.ppt

http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF417_Whitechapel.ppt

http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/OFF307_Covington.ppt

Jim.

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of John W. Colby
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 3:16 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL


I saw a demo of the new beta for Office and it is, shall we say,
distinctly developer UNFRIENDLY.  Actively, in-your-face unfriendly.  It
is SUPPOSED to be "power user" friendly, although it didn't look
particularly friendly at all.  A STEEP learning curve because the user
interface is just entirely and completely different.

Toolbars are gone (kind of replaced by "ribbons"), menus mostly just
cause "ribbons" to appear, which take up a lot of screen real estate and
are the replacement for toolbars.  Code tabs GONE.  You are supposed to
do things with macros again.  Which are the same old macros of old, no
error handlers etc.  Code modules do exist, and can be used, but I never
did see how you got at them.  Code is just too much for POWER USERS and
users are the focus.

Get out now while the gettin's good.

My personal feeling is that Office as we know it will be around until MS
pulls the plug on support, just because of the natural resistance of
companies to change what works.  The new Office is just not supposed to
be a dev environment any more.  Too many security problems, plus it
always was a clunky mish mash of old technology that MS is trying
desperately to retire.

Just my opinion.

I will continue to support my clients up through 2003, but beyond that
my services (in Office) are actively discouraged by MS and so I will
happily move on.  We always were second class citizens, I might as well
move on to VB.Net and keep my second class citizenship in good standing.
Plus with the emphasis on the web, distributed this-n-that and data
everywhere, ASP.Net, VB.net and SQL Server is a powerful environment.
IMHO, nothing will ever again match the RAD capabilities of Access for
database (specifically) application development but once I get up to
speed in DotNet I will be in the same league (in some ways) and waaaaaay
more capable in many others, so it will be a good tradeoff.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause:
http://folding.stanford.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Martin Reid
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 2:55 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL


All I can pass on is what I hear and pick up from the web. Personally I
think they will make a hugh push towards SharePoint technologies with
the new release of Office and that seems to be the direction they are
heading in

talks we have been having with them re projects in the University. On
the Access front I think MS focus is on .NET and XML as data the data
stores but

thats my own opinion. RE JET I did hear sometime ago that it would no
londer

be developed but as John says I am sure it wil remain about. I did also
hear

the new engine woudl work with JET.

I do know that when the Access dev team reps where in the UK they didnt
want

to meet developers but wanted to meet with users. Now that I do know and
have an email about somewhere that says that. Maybe that sort of sums up
what they think.


Martin


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