Seth Galitzer
sgsax at ksu.edu
Thu Apr 3 15:45:38 CST 2003
Just a couple of comments... On Thu, 2003-04-03 at 14:46, Drew Wutka wrote: > Are we going to bet on that....Access being accessorized? It probably won't > be called Access anymore, but it will be a database system packaged with the > OS. Think about it. Outlook Express comes with the OS, you also have Word > and Notepad. You have VBScript. All of that is packaged with the current > OS. I really think MS is going to end up moving away from the broad > packages and wind up with specialty packages, like their CRM. The "top secret, imminently to-be-released" version of Windows (code-name: Longhorn) is said to include a radically new file system based on SQL server. MS has waffled on this point, but it's basically replacing the "traditional" filesystem with a database. Academically, it sounds interesting, but I think in practice it is going to be a whopper of a resource hog. Tech pundits say it will mean that any old software will simply not work on the new platform. No details on how close it is to final, or if and when it will be released, but it's in the pipeline. Having said that, I have to disagree with your prognistication. I think it was William who said earlier that Office is the cash cow for MS. I would tend to agree with that. I also think that including any major office app in the OS is unrealistic. MS already has a stranglehold on the market just by their de facto presence. Bundling the apps in the OS would shoot themselves in the foot, unless they were castrated versions of such apps (think: less features than Works). As far as your list of "already included apps" is concerned, none of those can really be considered "major" apps. OE is severly limited in its featureset, Notepad is "edit" for Windows, Wordpad is a proof-of-conept that you can write an app entirely using MFC if you really wanted to (the dev team just decided to throw it in there), and VBScript is no substitute for a "rich development language" (neither is JavaScript for that matter). If MS was going to include a database app along these lines to be bundled with the OS, I sure as heck wouldn't want to use it for real development. > > I still don't get the 'increased' development time. I admit, hands down, > that if the project is relatively 'simple' and straight forward, OR requires > a lot of reporting, then Access is definitely faster...and the better > choice. However, I can develop an FE in VB, just as fast as I can in > Access, on more complex systems. ESPECIALLY if it is a system where I am > building classes to handle the data structure and business rules. Also, any > increases in development time are offset by the longevity of the end result. > Drew, you also are a VB-turned-sometimes-Access developer. Most people on this list have gone the other way. There's a learning curve no matter which way you go on this path. Some are better at traveling it than others, but that's true for learning any new development environment. Not to mention the fact you _like_ unbound forms. :) (Please no holy wars this week, it was just a JOKE.) > That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I won't hold it against you :) Seth -- Seth Galitzer sgsax at ksu.edu Computing Specialist http://puma.agron.ksu.edu/~sgsax Dept. of Plant Pathology Kansas State University