[AccessD] Development Practice (Was: Global Variable)

<Tom Bolton>
> So if you don't use globals, another developer
> will never mess around with your code and cause
> it to function incorrectly?

I think Tom's question is more properly addressed by good development
practice, rather than just simply looking at globals.

Access was never meant for multi-developer coding efforts. As such, it
encourages "kitchen-sink" development: developers modify their copy of the
app, and at a certain time, all the code revisions get thrown into the
'latest' mdb, where everyone's contributions are tested out. Any
toe-stepping is supposedly found out at this time. Anyone who has suffered
though this kind of development will tell you: this is lunacy.

Of course, the solution is some sort of source-control system. Office
Developer Edition comes with SourceSafe, and there is a source-control
add-in for Access. There are two problems with this approach: negligible
buy-in from the Access developer community, and the obtuse and inconvenient
nature of SourceSafe and the add-in.

This is one area where open-source developers have Access developers all
beat. A whole culture has grown around CVS (Concurrent Versioning System)
source control and the coding, testing and rollout of application revisions.
Typically, the app is divided into major functional sub-components, and
responsibility for these are given to single development leaders. They
maintain absolute control over their source fiefdoms through the mechanics
of CVS. In this way, bugs and new feature requests are formally given to the
controller of that part of the code, and misbehavior of other developers can
be clearly demonstrated, if need be, and fixed.

There is enough development talent in our group to make significant
applications in a cooperative manner. The thing that really holds back any
such possibility is the lack of a true developer culture. And the only way
that culture can even begin is through the availability and adoption of
centralized, web-enabled, source code control systems.

-Ken