[AccessD] Old Dog - New Tricks

Rocky,

  I strayed away from Access a while back and moved to VFP, which offered a
lot of advantages:

  Faster database engine
  OOP 
  Standalone EXE creation

  However it clearly showed it's command line roots; many of the visual
designers were lacking and there was an overall lack of coherence in the
product.

  But now Microsoft has killed that and I too am looking for the next best
thing.

  I'd really like to leverage my VFP skills and have been looking at DABO
(http://dabodev.com/), which is a framework written on top of Python, and is
up and coming.  It's certainly not ready for prime time IMHO, but it's
actively being worked on by to ex-VFP'ers and at some point, might be a
killer framework/language combination (it's cross platform).

  My fear though is by the time is gets to the level where I'd want to use
it, the world will have passed me by, so I'm starting to explore VB.net.

  And once again, having to learn to do the same things (from a
concept/application point of view) in a different way all over again<g>

Jim.

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin at
Beach Access Software
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:46 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: [AccessD] Old Dog - New Tricks

Dear List:
 
I am trying to decide what to do when I grow up.  Access is great but I
think the market for indies like myself is declining and I'm thinking that I
need to learn some new tricks.  The question is just what to learn.
 
I like developing small business applications - that's my strength.  So that
would be my target market.  But what platform?
 
I suppose whatever it is had better be web friendly.  Everyone seems to want
their databases and applications to reside on the web.  Or, if local, run
them in a browser.
 
So what should I learn?  VB.Net?  ASP?
I already have Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition which I got at a
Microsoft Launch and includes SQL Server 2005.
I also have VB 2008 Express Edition and Visual Web Developer.
I also have Front Page but that's been obsolete by Expressions which I can
get from the Web.
 
But I don't know how these different components relate.  Is ASP part of
Visual Studio?  Is ASP to .NET as DAO is to Access?  Can you deploy a .Net
app to the web or do you use something like Expressions to do it?  What
should I learn?  
 
Maybe I can combine what I need to learn with a Microsoft tutorial that will
get me back into the Partner Program.
 
I'm a bit at sea here as you can tell.  But assuming that I don't lay down
and let the feeling pass, I think it's time to start taking a serious look
at what I'm going to do for the next ten years. Probably a couple years past
due, actually.
 
Any advice/experience is of course, welcome.  
 
Regards,
 
Rocky
 
 
 
 
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