[AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various

Good points.:-) It is easy for an unknowledgeable client to be fooled by
flashy graphics. There is an old saying that goes something like:
Presentation is perception and perception is reality.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Francisco H
Tapia
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 1:00 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various


Drew,
  That is pure marketing genius.  Solutions that works don't have to
offer pretty screens and awesome logos.  However developers I've taken
over for, would have neat little logos, colors and maybe a cool set of
macros to do something stupid like animation.... :|

That sells, which is why Windows XP sells, and why all the new stuff is
skinnable, because people like that kinda thing.  It all depends on how
you present it...


DWUTKA at marlow.com wrote On 5/21/2004 9:27 AM:

>Oh, and on a similar line, why are people willing to pay gobs of money for
>garbage that doesn't work, but when presented with actual solutions, they
>want to pay pennies on the dollar.  ARG!
>
>Drew
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
>[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Charlotte
>Foust
>Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 10:09 AM
>To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
>Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various
>
>
>Arthur,
>
>Certification isn't the answer.  About 30 years ago all the major banks
>decided that they absolutely had to have MBAs in their management
>structure because these guys must know what they were doing.  So they
>brought in a bunch of whiz kids who lasted a year or two before their
>employers got wise to the fact that getting a degree didn't mean you
>knew how to do anything except take tests and defend a thesis in an
>academic setting.
>
>Programming is something of an art, or at the least, a craft, and it
>takes time and practice to perfect it.  Most of the bad stuff you see is
>because Access has always been marketed as an end user tool, so everyone
>who can use a wizard thinks of themselves as a developer.  I once worked
>on overhauling an Access project that a major company had paid $250,000
>to a "developer" to write.  I told them I would have been happy to give
>them a program that didn't work for a tenth of that! <VBG>  The guy
>*may* have know VB, given the way some of it was written, but he knew
>sweet damn all about Access/Jet and SQL.
>
>Charlotte Foust
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Arthur Fuller [mailto:artful at rogers.com]
>Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 4:32 PM
>To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
>Subject: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various
>
>
>Just a note on this bloat subject. I acquired a new client recently,
>whose DB was 220 MB. They burned me a CD containing same last weekend,
>so I could work on it while they were closed. Dumbass previous developer
>hadn't even split it into FE-BE! Everyone was loading the same instance
>of the whole thing across the net!
>
>They had a problem which I fixed. I estimated a day but once I got into
>it, 3 days elapsed. I split the difference and billed for 2 days.
>
>Upon inspection of said database, I discovered some incredible and
>bizarre anomalies/stupidities. Several tables of critical importance had
>no PKs and no FK indexes! Unbelievable!
>
>Anyway... I split the datbase, then made some mods to the BE which in
>theory ought to have almost doubled it (i.e. I made copies of every
>transaction table, but not the static lookup tables). Then I ran
>compact/repair, and the db came down to (gasp) 40 MB. This includes the
>doubled tables and the new PK and FK indexes that I added. From 200+ MB
>to 40 MB -- and this with doubled transaction tables. Once we get the
>s**t sorted out, I expect that it will come down to 25 MB.
>
>I have never programmed in an automatic compact/repair before -- I
>suppose because I tend to be available and do it as a matter of course.
>But this app has caused me to rethink that.
>
>More seriously, this app has caused me to rethink the virtues of
>certification. No BE! No PKs! No FK indexes! No wonder the bloddy app
>was slow with only 20 users on a net!
>
>The up side is, it's really easy to look good in a situation like this.
>The performance gains were spectacular. I got high-fives from all
>directions :)
>
>This is a strange business :)
>
>Arthur
>
>
>


--
-Francisco


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