[AccessD] OT: Dice.com on ms access

Wow, a succinct description of the value and attraction of Access (legos)
and an epitaph (forced to move to .Net) all on the same day. Both dead on.
This old hoss doesn't want to learn new tricks. Maybe I can be put out to
stud?
Jim Hale

-----Original Message-----
From: Charlotte Foust [mailto:cfoust at infostatsystems.com]
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 4:05 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Dice.com on ms access


For commercial operations like ours, Access has become an albatross.  IT
departments disparage Access and pass the attitude along wo their own
superiors, so we were forced to move to .Net in order to provide the slick
interface and web-based options the customers and the competition required.
I've always felt Access was misperceived by MS as an end-user tool.  End
users can certainly use it and they can build very BAD databases in it, but
it takes know-how to build a competent application in Access. 

The advantages of .Net and Ajax are more in interface than anywhere else,
but in that area, they are worlds away from what Access can do up through
2003.  You still gotta have a database in there somewhere, and we still
offer an Access backend, even with .Net.

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of artful at rogers.com
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 7:44 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Dice.com on ms access

Overall, I think the writer hit most of the nails on the head. I do,
however, take issue with one point: the small number of users. I developed
an enterprise app for a custom travel agency. Four offices scattered across
North America, everyone communicating with a single Terminal Services box
which hosted an ADP which spoke to a SQL Server box -- 70+ simultaneous
users and not a hiccup in sight. It worked flawlessly. Granted, that's not
the scale that General Motors or Chrysler requires, but I wouldn't call it
"a small number of employees."

IMO, Access has been seriously under-rated by professional .NET etc.
developers, and not only by them, but also by MS. I admit that I stretched
the envelope, experimenting in this and that way, using replication etc.,
but at the end of the day I had a single enterprise app that did everything
but the accounting, and that was accomplished using the API to QuickBooks.
So I am the LAST person to admit the lack of scalability of Access apps.
Maybe Amazon couldn't run on an Access app, but I have no clients in that
category. And I am quite willing to pose Access against any .NET or Ajax
solution in the realm of <300 simultaneous users.

Arthur



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