[AccessD] Alpha Anywhere

As an old codger, looking at retirement in a few years, I did not want to
start learning a new language nor did I want to start over learning
something that I might not use.  I have worked exclusively on the same
project for four years. I completed the first version in six months and it
has been continually modified and updated since.  I am on my fourth
contract. Some of the issues have been the IT departments restrictions on
what can and cannot be done.

It was suggested that the Access 2007 tool I built be re-written for the
web! A daunting task at best and almost impossible in my mind.  It contains
82 tables, 532 queries, 167 forms, 152 reports, 33 modules which contains
over 30 UDFs and over 34,000 lines of code.

I did research on the best way to convert it to the web and still keep in
mind the costs, etc.. I found Alpha Five and from what I read, it seemed to
be the best solution. What I read stated it was easy to learn, somewhat
easy to convert Access to Alpha Five and it was able to port over to the
web.  I asked for Alpha Five, v11 to be purchased so I could see how it
worked and to see what kind of learning curve I would have.  It took over
six months for it come in... not because of Alpha but the purchasing
department is slow.  Once I received it, I was told by the IT department it
wasn't authorized to be on the network!  So I had to put it on a laptop.

I procrastinated for a few months before I started working with it.
Probably because I didn't want to learn new things at my advanced age.

I have been going through the tutorials and reading the documentation in
the Alphapedia for the last week or so. It's been a real eye opener. Xbasic
which is the programming language is quick and similar to VBA. I have had
no problem reading it... although it's like reading a foriegn language
sometimes. It is way more powerful than Access.

Many of you have heard the phrase:  There's an app for that!  You know an
app for your mobile device.  To compare... In Alpha Five .... There's a
function for that!  For example, some of you might remember the discussion
we had a few years ago on the best way to calculate the someone's age or
the age of an invoice or something else.  The final function was over 50
lines of code.  Alpha has a function for that. The Age() function
calculates the age from the current date or any date for that matter.

The learning curve is not as steep as I thought. I just have to keep at
it.  Someone once said (I think it was Arthur) Alph Anywhere "beats the
socks off" of Access. I must admit he's right!

Jim



On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>wrote:

> Full Disclure: I am in no way affiliated with the company behind this
> software, other than I have found their principals and developers most
> forthcoming with software, updates, friendship and technical support.
>
> Acess developers are looking for a new parking spot. I strongly recommend
> AlphaSoftware.com as the place to begin. Write once, deploy to anywhere.
> e.g. smart phones, tablets and traditional web sites. No more need to code
> for specific platforms: AA handles all this so gracefully that it makes
> competitors vomit. No lie. Check it out, free trial downloads available.
>
> And one more thing... Due to my previously established relationship with
> said firm, I can garner a deal for us all. Regular price is ~1K, cheap at
> the price, but assuming that I can gather ten or twenty buy-ins, then the
> price might drop significantly.
>
> Restating the aforementioned, I have zero fiscal interest in the Alpha
> sfttware firm. I stand to gain absolutely nothing from my endorsement of
> their software firm. I just call them as I see them, and in this case,
> Idecale AA the leader of the Pack. Nothing else contends..
>
> --
> Arthur
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>