Rocky Smolin - Beach Access Software
bchacc at san.rr.com
Tue Sep 27 11:49:08 CDT 2005
John: How does it compare with Access' reporting capabilities? That's one of the things I like most about Access - the way you can generate a fairly complex report quickly. Rocky ----- Original Message ----- From: "John W. Colby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'" <accessd at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 7:57 AM Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL > >Like it or not, .Net is here to stay it seems. > > Yes, I have to agree. And to be quite honest I like it - IF you have high > speed internet to assist in looking up stuff that isn't in the books. > .Net > is far and away the most powerful development framework I have ever seen. > With power comes... Confusion, steep learning curves, huge time > commitments. > > > The nice part is that MS has poured so much time and energy into .net, and > indeed appears to be using it themselves in-house, that it appears > unlikely > that it will ever just "go away" as so many other MS "greatest thing > since > sliced bread" projects have. > > Just an aside, I brought up my new web site last week - > www.colbyconsulting.com. It uses DotNetNuke (DNN) which is an entire > framework for building web sites. DotNetNuke is an awesome tool, but it > is > also an entire ASP.net application in it's own right. If you register on > my > site, you will have access to a Forums page (nothing in it yet of course). > The forums module is just a snap-in to DNN. I went out and found it, > uploaded it, inserted a page and dropped the module on the page. Voila, > forums in my site for whatever I think is useful to discuss. > > DNN is about separating appearance from content from process. You can > (once > you come up to speed, which in this case isn't THAT hard) just edit the > content that you see on a web page directly in a text editor, on-line in > your site. You can add / delete pages, already (automatically) linked to > menu items, or submenu items. Theoretically you can skin it (yea, my new > site is pretty ... Uhh... "Functional looking" so far). Skins are not > content, are not process. And of course, if you need process (a program) > you have .NET available at your fingertips. > > I am looking at developing a set of custom modules for DNN for a web site > I > am trying to get happening - www.StarfishKatrina.com . I need a custom > program to allow congregations to volunteer to assist families needing > relocation assistance, and which allow aid organizations to find these > congregations. The web site is just the middle man but I need a couple of > pages to allow these two entities to enter themselves into a database (SQL > Server is available to DNN modules, and perhaps MySQL as well). Since DNN > is ASP.Net based, and has a well defined interface for building modules > that > "snap-in" to DNN, I hope(!) that doing this will be on the trivial side. > > DNN already has code for building what they call CommonBusinessObjects > (CBOs) which are just the data classes for a table, and what they call a > "hydrator" that loads instances of ANY CBO from a matching table. Pass in > a > data reader and a class type and back comes an instance of that class type > containing all the data from a record in the table. As long as your > properties match the field names, it just works. > > This kind of stuff makes the process of developing data driven > applications > MUCH easier, and can exist exactly because of the power of .NET (ASP.Net > in > this case) being leveraged by the DNN developers being leveraged by ME! > > Yea, .Net is tough to get into but it is just so powerful, so much stuff > just ready to use, and so much else already available out there for a > download. > > I am in no way "there" yet, or even close, but I am definitely on my way. > > John W. Colby > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: > http://folding.stanford.edu/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Dettman > Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 10:28 AM > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL > > > Arthur, > > <<Perhaps I am just depressed this evening :)>> > > No, I just think your being realistic. .Net is here to say whether we > like it or not. About four years ago I started looking for alternatives > to > Access and settled on Visual Fox Pro despite the fact that it was > (supposedly) "on it's last legs", but it gave me some of what Access > offered > (integrated DB engine) and yet got around some of the short comings (not > being able to produce EXE or do n-Tier designs). > > As a result, I ignored .Net. I think I'm going to pay for that now. > I've > already lost one consulting job because I had no .Net experience and by > the > time I do finally manage to get my arms around it, I'll probably have lost > quite a few more. > > Like it or not, .Net is here to stay it seems. > > Jim. > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller > Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 2:05 AM > To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' > Subject: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL > > > Frankly I would say that MS (the company) has never regarded Access as a > serious development tool... this despite the efforts of the Access > development team to make it one. The bottom line (of principal interest to > MS) is that Access ships with Office, and despite the developer's kits, > they > always have and always will regard it as a toy, as compared (in various > eras) with VB, VC, .NET et. al. We are the underground. We like RAD > development and the Access development team keeps helping us do it. But it > is not in the commercial interests of MS either to provide a genuine > compiler or to provide a .NET porter. I deeply admire the Access > development > team (knowing none of them personally). My take is that they fight an > uphill > battle to keep this product in contention; but MS the corporation is much > more interested in the money it can make from .NET software, seminars, > books > etc. This is not to slag .NET either. It is a high-quality product and it > can do things Access developers only dream of. But that is the dividing > line. There will never be an MS-authored Access compiler, nor a tool to > port > Access apps to .NET. MS is in exactly the same position as Ashton-Tate > was, > so long ago, when my friend Brian Russell had a vision that led to > Clipper, > which revolutionized the dBASE marketplace back then. There seems to be no > one to step up to the plate and provide an Access-compiler nor an > Access->.NET converter, so here we are, not quite orphaned, and certainly > not abandoned by the Access dev team (mucho kudos to them), but we are not > in the MS mainstream. The greatest thing the Access dev team has achieved > so > far, IMO, is the ADP project format, which can speak directly to SQL. I > don't know how long this will live. I hope for a long time. But I cannot > help but think that inside Microsoft, various powers think of this as > heresy, and tolerate it the same way they tolerate FoxPro. Funding will > continue, but minimally. (This is pure conjecture; I don't know a soul > within MS in any position of power or influence, so take my words as pure > conjecture from a recipient of their software and nothing more.) I am > slowly > learning .NET. Only because the market seems certain to go that way. I > would > much prefer to stay with Access, and receive a compiler that delivers EXEs > rather than the current run-time solutions, but I don't see that in the > cards, nor see a third party with the skills to bring it to the table. So > here I am, relatively expert at Access, an amateur at .NET, and thinking > more and more and more that I should just concentrate on my real expertise > and become a SQL Server DBA, and to hell with the application side of > things. Perhaps I am just depressed this evening :) Arthur > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >