[AccessD] Is it over for desktop apps?

[Arthur Fuller]

Dear John,

Wow I guess you've heard that opening to a letter or email hitherto. 😀

We are all quite aware of the lack of connectivity. You failed to answer my
question: have YOU written any desktop apps (in the past decade or so)?

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 2:35 PM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are millions of Americans that have zero access to the internet.
> There are BILLIONS of human beings with zero access to the internet.  Nuff
> said.
>
> On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 12:17 PM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Recently I came across (on Quora) the following remark regarding fully
> > fledged desktop applications. "Personally I think those days are nearly
> > over and it would be best to move to the cloud straight away."
> >
> > Although technically I am retired and have been so for a number of
> years, I
> > spent a good number of years developing desktop apps, primarily in Access
> > but also in a couple of other languages.
> >
> > The term "desktop apps" includes both strictly desktop (both FE and BE on
> > the same machine) and apps that live on a small network, with the BE
> living
> > on a server. I have never written an app that lives in the cloud, even
> > though I have a license to MS 365. Mostly my experience with the cloud is
> > off-site backup. I tend to develop locally, so to speak, and then copy to
> > OneDrive frequently.
> >
> > I'm curious as to your experience.
> >
> > 1. Do you develop apps for use on the cloud? If so, approximately what
> > percentage of your apps live there?
> > 2. Assuming that the client of interest has an internet connection, is
> > there any reason to develop your apps *not *for the cloud?
> > 3. Are there shortcomings (specifically with Office in mind) to
> > cloud-based-apps that desktops apps do not suffer? I mention Office
> because
> > many if not most of the apps I've written in the past couple of decades
> > have consisted of pieces written in Access, Word and Excel; a few of
> these
> > are quite elaborate, involving exports to Excel first, then creating
> tables
> > within Word documents, formatted according to standards mandated by
> various
> > provincial governments, and in Canada that may also involve translation
> > from English to French.
> >
> > Let's stick to Access, for the moment. I have only a little experience
> > deploying apps to hundreds or thousands of users. Mainly I've worked with
> > smallish corporations or government branches with, give or take, a
> hundred
> > users in a few cities, all connected to a Windows Terminal Server. My
> > thoughts back then were that the FE should reside locally, on each box;
> and
> > I took the time to create a self-extracting EXE which would deposit the
> > latest install or update locally, with its connection to the server baked
> > in.
> >
> > Bear in mind that in a couple of months I'll be 75yo, and so have
> probably
> > --nay, certainly -- fallen far behind current thinking and technologies.
> So
> > I'm asking for you to help me patch and paddle this leaking canoe.
> >
> > Should I be thinking exclusively in terms of the cloud? Is it essentially
> > over for local servers (one per office, approximately)? If so, does that
> > mean that the market for local servers is over? What advantage is to be
> > gained, if any, by having a local server, as opposed to running it all on
> > the cloud?
> >
> > And now we return to the classic question, albeit with a cloudy twist.
> > Should the FE reside in the cloud, as well as the BE?
> >
> > And finally, can I copyright the name McCloud? Of course, I dropped the
> "e"
> > and I know it! I am also confused by the spellings of "McX" and "MacX",
> > wherein "X" stands for anything from "Donald" to "Hoolihan" to
> "Robertson"
> > and any other letters I've left out -- oops, cannot omit Mathew Matthew
> > McConnaughey. There are names of towns in Wales easier to spell than
> > Matthew's surname. It's only fair: you can't be that handsome and have a
> > name like "Bill Smith" or even worse, "Arthur Fuller.
> > *Back to the Cloud*, the original subject of this admittedly incherent
> > message. As so accused, I plead Guilty to the charge of Incoherence. In
> the
> > past month, I have suffered two strokes, and while still able to speak
> and
> > type, walking has become an issue. As William Burroughs said, "If I'd
> known
> > I were going to live this long, I should have taken better care of
> myself."
> > (Being a fussbudget, I corrected his spelling.)
> > New idea for the next Olympics: Aquatic Spelling Bees. The contestants
> wear
> > waterproof earphones and listen to the words to spell, and then enunciate
> > them underwater -- something similar to two divers trying to communicate
> > distress while two hundred feet beneath the water's surface. That could
> be
> > serious fun!
> >
> >
> > --
> > Arthur
> > --
> > AccessD mailing list
> > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> > https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >
>
>
> --
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> --
> AccessD mailing list
> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>


-- 
Arthur