[AccessD] Is it over for desktop apps?

[John Colby]

For what it is worth, I do not consider a phone a valid platform for office
apps.  I have used Google sheets and it works, and sucks soooo badly. Let's
not even discuss a real editor.  Databases?

JMHO of course.

All of that said, I do a ton of work on my laptop in my 18 wheeler,
connected to both the web and private servers, over my phone as a wifi
hotspot.  And my wifi hotspot has been blazing fast and it has timed out
from even connecting after 5 minutes.  My strategy is to do my dev local on
my laptop, then push the incremental work up to the server whenever I have
connectivity.

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 2:54 PM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
> --
> AccessD mailing list
> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>


-- 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting