[AccessD] Burn-out

Darryl Collins darryl at whittleconsulting.com.au
Wed Feb 1 16:27:25 CST 2012


Heh... outstanding post Arthur :)

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2012 4:02 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Burn-out

You remind me of a great T-shirt I saw in the old days of DOS:

"Real programmers don't use compilers; they write compilers."

I am therefore unqualified for the designation "Real Programmer", but I love the slogan's message. It puts us all in our place.

One could go further: a good friend, Russell Freeland, once said, "I always thought of C as a high-level front end to assembly language."

We all find our levels, then bitch and moan and whine about their inadequate mechanisms of delivery. That's life in cyberspace. Get over it, Please! It's never going to improve, for several reasons:

1.  The mission of the vendors is to deliver a new virgin once a year, if not more frequently, the purpose of which marketing model is to guarantee subscription-upgrades.

2. The mission of the intelligent users (possibly a contradiction in terms, but let's grant the benefit of doubt) is to stick with what works, unless and until it doesn't. They are fundamentally opposed to upgrading anything, since this is dangerous water infested with human-eating sharks; and they are quite right.

3. You and I, bold adventurers and beta-testers that we compulsively are, The only safe defense against egregious anomalies is the use of VMs, so nothing important is destroyed, no matter the extent of my stupidity, drunken-ness, wars with spouse, impatient delays for the cheques to arrive, and so on. One tries, despite these obstacles, to achieve Satori. It is not easy, and it is doubly-tough for freelancers.

4. You and I and many other developers who consider ourselves Access Developers and perhaps Office-Integration Developers (i.e. skilled at combining the features of Word, Excel and Access into a cohesive couple-of-clicks app that performs all its magic without intervention beyond a single click on a button within the given Access app).

5. There is no obvious path to upgrading an Access app to a C# or VB.NETetc. version. The models are way too different. Kudos to any vendor willing to supply such an add-in, but I give MS 0.4% odds of even wanting to deliver this, let alone actually delivering a usable virgin. If you think this is going to happen, I suggest therapy. There are only two chances of this occurrence: a Slim One and a  Fat One.

6. Consider this from the viewpoint of the MS marketing department. Much more money is to be gained by forcing developers into any combination of Visual Studio, SSMS and so on. Tempt us with free and limited versions, and hope that our clients will pick up the tab for an upgrade; or alternatively, you have enough clients to justify your expenditure on the Professional virgin, and from there you can Rock & Roll. Last time I looked, that was about $700. Small potatoes in an SMB organization; big potatoes for me.

7. I'm not really complaining about MS's strategy. All I am saying is that in my current semi-retired state, I have not a lot of incentive to spend the ~$700 to upgrade my tools. The few gigs per year that I get, one in five wants Access 2010; most are mired in the XP versions of same, and actually I consider this a Good Thing (as Martha Stewart might describe it).

8. Unlike many of the AccessD listers, I happen to love the new RibbonBar layout and its customizability. I realize that my opinion is in the minority; I can live with that.

A.

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

-Nathaniel Borenstein<http://www.quoteland.com/author/Nathaniel-Borenstein-Quotes/63/>
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