bruce_bruen at mlc.com.au
bruce_bruen at mlc.com.au
Tue Feb 10 22:00:01 CST 2004
I have no doubt that the progress of desktop programming environments is of value. As you say some functions available today were not possible in previous times - I only have to look at the pictures of carrots on the supermarket cash register display to remind me of that :-) My disappointment lies in the way that Access has progressed lately and "according to Getz" will be progressing in the future. I use Access as a Rapid Development IDE mainly for one off analytic work - quite possibly this is not the mainstream use of the tool. However, in that realm, it is superb. I believe, please correct me if I'm wrong guys, that the majority of the serious business applications that generate the revenue of many of the listers are quite right-sized by the access model. There is one probable exception. I agree that Access does, and always has, run like a dog across a network. It is also sensitive to unstable networks. I repeat - has and always has. Now has M$ ever adequately addressed that? Not within the Access model. We have always lacked a means to generate native executables. Why? What would be the technical difficulty in producing an Access FE compiler? I am all for progress of Access. I just want it to be what I want and need, which is not for development of medium to large scale commercial applications. When I do get involved in that it is within a technical base that supports that level of development - as you say in Studio or .net using a heavyweight rdbms. B All true, but the issue raised was: "How many companies would still be running DOS if they had a choice? I bet a lot, because it is the function of the software that really matters in business, and not so much the underlying technology." The 'function of the software' of the many applications running today, simple would not be capable of running under DOS due to its limitations, hence the reason why alternatives have been designed. I'd say that companies wouldn't really care what the underlying OS is, as long as their apps of choice would run. I can't see many cases at all where an org would *choose* to run an application under DOS if they had the choice. This whole discussion of 'leave Access alone its not broke' is raised whenever new versions are released. Its unfortunate that many are unwilling to even consider the advances that could be made. I'd be interested to know how many here have actually used Visual Studio and/or programmed in .Net. If not, I don't see how you can pass judgement in this areas on possible improvements, advances or tools that you've not used. (Yes, I professionally program in this environment and consider the framework / languages and environment superior to that of the Access IDE, which I have thoroughly enjoyed using for the past 10 years). We work in a dynamic industry that is constantly changing. Some of us seem to refuse to adapt or accept change and others look to the future. Cheers, Andrew