[AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL

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
>
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