[AccessD] MS Access and data-driven websites

Hello, all!  It's been a while since I was here, but I had a thought today that seemed like a perfect fit for the list, so here I am.

Over the past few years I've more or less specialized around SQL Server and ASP (both classic and .net).  In fact, 90% of my projects that involve an interface run in the browser now.  But the one place where I have not been able to escape MS Access has been on small web sites.

Now, I know that the "conventional wisdom" is that using Access to power dynamic web sites is a bad idea.  In fact, what inspired this message was a conversation I had with a DBA acquaintance of mine about this very subject.  He is adamant that it's better to pass on a project than to agree to use Access to power an asp site.  With him it's SQL Server or nothing.  He cited all the usual stuff about Access being too slow and not being able to handle load to bolster his argument.

But, I've had several Access-powered web sites go up over the past few years.  Sure, it's mostly serving text content, but I've never had an Access-specific problem with any of them.  And some of them are reasonably complex on the back-end!  It seems to me that when an Access-powered site is sucking wind, the problem is more in how the pages are coded than in how JET works.  It seems simple to me; you don't grab more records than you need, you close your recordsets, you keep your connection code clean, you turn off the Subdatasheet property in the mdb.  Little things like that.  

For my larger clients, sure, SQL Server is the way to go, and I'm on the road to becoming a SQL Server guru myself, but I don't really see any downsies to using Access to power small sites.

Is anyone else doing a lot of web work?  Are you using Access to power your dynamic sites?  If so, let me know what your thoughts are on this.  

Respectfully,

Christopher Hawkins
Chief Developer
Cogeian Systems
(559) 687-7591
www.cogeian.com