Stuart McLachlan
stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Sat Jul 24 19:19:26 CDT 2010
A couple of relevant comments that I have just come across on LinkedIn (Professional Microsoft Access Developers' Network (PMADN)) Mark Edwards o I don't know how passionately anyone else feels about Access, but when I discovered how to bring what I learned in enterprise development to the Access/VBA platform, I discovered a whole, new, powerful development environment that I like to refer to as a "Office Studio powered by Extreme VBA". When I get asked to go to a client for an Access contract, they're expecting the usual, wizard, builder, macro, querydef object stuff that most folks usually do that has limited capabilities. Once they see what else I can do with it, I usually end up in extended engagements that have me getting passed around from department-to-department so everyone can get that custome software app they have always wanted (my last 6-month contract lasted 2.5 years!). I've even had other contractor companies working for the same company that I'm working for ask me to help them with their contract work because they don't have anyone who can do what I do (just don't let their Access people feel inferior - maintain good relationships). Feel free to visit my company website (www.vbaofficesolutions.com) for a more colorful explanation of "Extreme VBA". and Armen Stein o I agree with both Marks above. Access has been under-appreciated as a business software development environment, but I think maybe it's changing. I'm finding that companies are realizing that they need to get something done, and that a professionally-written Access application (especially with a SQL Server back-end) fits the bill perfectly. And I'm also seeing that we're getting less pushback from "IT snobs" that once insisted that Access wasn't serious enough. Maybe the tougher economy is making people more realistic about real-world value in their systems development. Regarding Mark E.'s comments about what Access actually is: In a panel I participated in at the last TechEd, I described Access as a "development environment that comes with a free database in the box". Here's a link to the video: http://mfile.akamai.com/14853/wmv/microsofttec.download.akamai.com/14853/TechEdOnlin e/Videos/08_NA_dev_TEOPanel_05_low.asx It's this powerful, rapid development environment that gives Access its value. We do a lot of projects using both Access and ASP.NET. Don't get me wrong, ASP.NET has its place when an app needs to be deployed publically. But we find that the same functionality takes several times more effort than Access/SQL Server apps. That's hard to argue with. On 24 Jul 2010 at 14:00, Brad Marks wrote: > All, > > I suspect that I have quite a different perspective than most of you > regarding Access. After many years of working in the IBM mainframe > environment, I now find myself working for a small firm. We have > several PC-based purchased products and we are using Access to build > interfaces and to provide an easy way to get at data that in the past > was very difficult to get at. > > I am very impressed with Microsoft Access and what we are able to do > with it. So far, I have not encountered anything that needs to be > done that cannot be done with Access. All of our applications are for > internal use only and are there is no need for them to be Web-based. > > Over the past couple months, there have been some comments in this > forum regarding Access and its future. Some people have said that > Access is declining in use and is becoming a niche product. I would > like to get some more perspective on this issue. Again, I am coming > from a non-Microsoft environment, so I do not know the history, > evolution, direction, and future of the Microsoft products. > > If not Access for the small business environment, then what? > > Are some people suggesting that Visual Studio is going to replace > Access? > > If so, isn't Visual Studio much more complicated and expensive than > Access? > > If Access can get the job done, is there a need for a more powerful > and complicated product? > > If we continue to build things with Access, are we going to be kicking > ourselves 5 years from now? > > These are all probably dumb questions. Please cut me a little slack > as many years of JCL, DB2, COBOL, BAL, etc have left me a bit > feeble-minded :-) > > Thanks in advance for your ideas and perspectives on this topic. > > Brad > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >