[AccessD] Simple-Talk commentary

Steve,

I have to agree with Gustav - Yawn.

What in the world makes Excel an FE generator superior to Access?  One of the very strengths, 
acknowledged by pretty much anyone who has used it, is the ability to "get at" data in so many 
different data stores.

Access is indeed limited as a BE, however the contention is that "there is no clear upgrade path to 
SQL Server".  What does THAT mean?  No explanation at all.  Access talks just fine to SQL Server, 
though certainly not at the same speed as it does to JET.

I am now working a lot in C# and SQL Server.  C# is way powerful, an order of magnitude more 
powerful than Access in terms of the built-in capabilities of the framework and the language itself. 
  SQL Server is several orders of magnitude more powerful than JET.  The combination is just awesome.

That said, Access is still an order of magnitude more powerful in terms of EASE and SPEED of 
DEVELOPMENT.  That is said by someone (me) still relatively new to C# (only about 6 months of heavy 
duty work) so I certainly cannot claim the level of expertise that I have with Access, but FOR WHAT 
IT DOES, Access is just point and click.  C# is often a royal PITA.

OTOH C# does so much more than Access.

The bottom line is that Access is absolutely perfect for small company database development.  As the 
size of the application itself becomes large, Access maintenance becomes much more difficult than 
the same application in C#.  Source control in Access is clunky (at best), project organization in 
C# is much better.  FOR LARGE PROJECTS, C# / SQL Server is undeniably a better environment.  But 
most projects, and particularly SMALL COMPANY projects to not start out as large projects, though 
they MAY eventually grow into large projects.

The problem is that the small company needs fast and light or it simply cannot afford the 
development cost.  As the company grows it may very well discover that a migration to C# / SQL 
Server is required, but hopefully by then they have the income stream to support that development 
cost that as a small company they simply could not support.

Access and C# simply do not target the same market.  IMHO, they never will.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Steve Erbach wrote:
> Dear Group,
> 
> I receive the Simple-Talk newsletter from Red Gate software.  It's a
> SQL Server-boosting publication with lots of good articles sponsored
> with ads for Red Gate products.
> 
> The editorial content is good, too.  This month's edition (out this
> morning) had the following editorial and I thought I'd pass it along.
> What do you think about the editor's point that there is no obvious
> upgrade path from Access and that it has long out-lived its
> usefulness?