Huffman, Jarad B.
jbhuffman at mdh.org
Wed Jul 16 09:26:22 CDT 2003
two of the requirements for a BS in computer science at my local university are 2 semesters of COBOL. It's still widely used, sadly. Jarad Huffman -----Original Message----- From: Hale, Jim [mailto:jim.hale at fleetpride.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 9:18 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Future of Access? <who is going to be able to maintain his software if it <is not converted every few years to a technology that people are able and willing to work with?> My son just graduated from college with a business degree in MIS. He has had the GOOD fortune to land a great job with a major insurance company. The catch? He has been assigned to the mainframe maintenance team. He is attempting to learn COBOL, JCL and easytrieve (?) to service apps that might have been cutting edge 30 yrs ago. For someone whose total experience is with object oriented programming (he is a pretty good web designer) he is going nuts! Even the manuals are out of print <g>. Jim Hale -----Original Message----- From: Wortz, Charles [mailto:CWortz at tea.state.tx.us <mailto:CWortz at tea.state.tx.us> ] Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 8:52 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: RE: [AccessD] Future of Access? Arthur, But in 30 years will the kids know how to use pencils? <grin> That is one of the reasons I told Chris to expect some conversions of his software. Unless he is planning on staying on the project for the next 30 years, who is going to be able to maintain his software if it is not converted every few years to a technology that people are able and willing to work with? The software does not wear out, but finding people that understand old software and are willing to maintain it is very expensive. The dBase applications I wrote 10-15 years ago probably still would work fine, but how are you going to find anybody that understands the dBase file structure and is willing to work with it? They would have to double my salary if they wanted me to stick with dBase. Thus, they all have been converted to Access since that is a technology that has an large labor pool of developers and maintainers. Charles Wortz Software Development Division Texas Education Agency 1701 N. Congress Ave Austin, TX 78701-1494 512-463-9493 CWortz at tea.state.tx.us -----Original Message----- From: Arthur Fuller [mailto:artful at rogers.com <mailto:artful at rogers.com> ] Sent: Wednesday 2003 Jul 16 08:16 To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Future of Access? The only technology guaranteed to be here in 2033, AFAIK, is a pencil and paper :-) However, the remote users might not like the time-lag. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com <mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com> ] On Behalf Of Foote, Chris Sent: July 16, 2003 5:57 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Future of Access? Thanks for the input Gustav! I'd forgotten about Oracle! I'll add that to the list of possibilities. The requirements are (at this stage) pretty vague, but is likely to involve up to ten concurrent users on geographically remote sites. I'm guessing on half a million records split between five/six main tables. My current A97 db with 16k records weighs in at (FE + BE) 15MB. My proposed db is not much more complicated than this. Thirty years ago my programming was done on a Ferranti Pegasus mainframe. I had to write the programme one paper with a pencil, convert it to hole on punched cards, wait for the technician to run the programme and give me the paper read-out. The Pegasus (IIRC) used 60 thousand ECC83 valves (tubes) and had a whole building to itself. Thirty years on, I've got more processing power in my cell phone! But my company /still/ wants me to design a database to be used for the /next/ thirty years! Best Regards! Chris Foote (UK) _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd <http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com <http://www.databaseadvisors.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://databaseadvisors.com/pipermail/accessd/attachments/20030716/b88ec15a/attachment-0001.html>