Charlotte Foust
cfoust at infostatsystems.com
Tue Sep 27 13:11:50 CDT 2005
Crystal Reports ships with VS.Net but many of us use 3rd party reporting tools. Our office uses DataDynamics' ActiveReports, which is very reminiscent of Access reports and even has a wizard to convert Access reports. Still takes some hand work, but not bad. Charlotte Foust -----Original Message----- From: Rocky Smolin - Beach Access Software [mailto:bchacc at san.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 9:49 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL 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 > Access->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 > -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com