John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Sep 28 08:43:02 CDT 2005
William, It is not all up there yet, in fact I am just starting that phase. I am requiring a registration to get at that stuff though. Simple name/email and you are in. I need to somehow communicate that on the main page or header area. 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 William Hindman Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 8:49 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL ..and where oh where are your downloads? ...I went looking for something I knew you had the other night and lo! ...t'was all gone :( William ----- 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 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL > LOL, they are all starting to look like DotNetNuke sites. DNN sites > can > be > skinned but DNN provides specific functionality and so little icons for > getting at that functionality are appearing in the interface. I just > added > a free skin to my site which changes it a little bit. More can be done, > but > I am not yet up on how to do it. > > 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 > Lawrence > Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:27 PM > To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' > Subject: Re: [AccessD] The future of Access, .NET and SQL > > > Hi John: > > Is it my imagination but are all the new sites starting to look the > same??? > > Jim > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John W. > Colby > Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 7:58 AM > To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' > 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 > > > -- > 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