Shamil Salakhetdinov
shamil at users.mns.ru
Mon Jul 18 07:36:48 CDT 2005
<<< > Just think about it. Suppose you could do everything you can in Access, and > then compile the result into a stand-alone product that doesn't require the > run-time or anything else, and compiles to say 2mb per app. >>> Arthur, I suppose MS Access is so big in its and related file sizes because it has a lot of features. Only MSACCESS.EXE (2003) size is 6+MB. How one can shrink that into 2MB per app? MS Access is a powertoy. It was always targeted like that by MS. My daughter who is 19 years old and who is on her 2nd grade in highschool does do great things with it and MS Word and MS Excel during her Informatics courses study - she does in minutes and hours what ten years ago was almost mpossible to do using months of professional programming - and all looks like a game... I did spend a lot of time working with MS Access. I know it well. It's getting depreciated for professional development because with .NET one can do similar things with almost comparable ease(speed) and many other things, which can't be done in MS Access because of its programming lanuage limitations. Yes, using MS Access together with MS Office a lot of office work can be automated and this is where MS Access really shines... When you need to do such office automation on more professional level - use .NET Tools for MS Office. I did program a way to much on VBA - you know all that my investigations on the VBA edge - I should have better spend most of this time on something else - VBA limitations are naturally designed by MS and MS don't have plans to remove them as far as I can guess.... Last year I did program three separate MS Excel add-ins using VBA(in Excel). When I tried to combine them into one I did get met with VBA limitations once again - together they just stopped to work, were GPFing unexpectedly(because of a lot of code?) etc. - and I did quit this my idea. Later on, last autumn, I ported all that three add-ins in four days into VB.NET + .NET Tools for MS Offcie - they worked like a charm, used common library code etc.etc.... MS Access is getting out for professional development, especially for off-the-shelf solutions - it's becoming more and more like a powertool/powertoy to make everyday work by powerusers - and the "army" of these powerusers is becoming bigger and bigger wih every year... Professional MS Access programmers have to switch to something more professional (pun intended:)) .... Of course I do use MS Access to make some quick tests and as poweruser to process and keep all kinds of information. And I do plan to continue doing that way this my internal office work. But when I will decide to make something off-the-shelf from that internal office automation I will use C# or C++ - they have no limitations and they are WYDIWYG-programming tools as opposed to WYDYMFTI-programming VBA-based tools... What is great with VB/VBA is that they allow very high level of "edit and continue" programming, which doesn't yet exist in VB.NET and C# (they promise to have it in VS.NET 2005). I was originally assembler programmer, then C, Pascal, C++ and then VBA, VB6 - all the "real" (not VB and VBA) programming languages force you to "think/design first then program" and I did do design/program a lot in the past on the paper then typed all that on punch cards or into computer program sources files (there was computer time limitation here in the past), then debugged all that - and voila' - the program is ready... With VB6/VBA this my previous programming habits/style were completely ruined with incremental rather chaotic and hectic "edit and continue" programming style. Yes, this is good to create "quick&dirty" office automation small solutions but they are not that good(bad in fact) to work on something more serious... Nowadays as far as I see a new programming style/paradigm arises (exists in fact as far as I can guess but I have still to meet somebody working this way) - and this is a combination of "think/design" and "edit&continue" styles based on all the last 10-15 years experience in OOP&D and the modern development tools (e.g. VS.NET) - to become a high level programmer/software architect in this area experience and only real life development/programming experience is the answer. The more real software you create using this technique the more you get how right and useful it's - so after 15 years of VB/VBA "madness" we again return to real programming using real programming languages and real-life programming experience... That looks like a natural turn of evolution spiral.... (BTW, IMO to know C/C++ and even ATL/COM isn't "all you need" to become a high level programmer - I have seen/see programs written using these languages and development tools, which I wouldn't call professionally written. Yes they work and are used in business applications but the overhead to support them is too high to be true.... ) I mean: VBA is getting out of mainstream development programming languages because of its natural limitations, which are becoming so obvious now and which make one trying to make the living from programming uneasy to compete... I still like VBA/VB especially because they are the only(?) tools for quick prototyping using their unique "edit&continue" feature but this is planned to be inherited by VS.NET 2005.... Shamil P.S. WYDIWYG - What You Design Is What You Get - whatever design you create based on the most modern programming design concepts you will no doubt be able to implement it using C# and C++. WYDYMFTI - What You Design You May Fail To Implement because of programming language limitations, you'll spend a lot of time with very low end result.... Be prepared, don't get desperate, you can keep trying but you will fail again... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arthur Fuller" <artful at rogers.com> To: "'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 4:18 AM Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Dearly Departed Databases (R.I.P.) > Thanks for reminding me of these babies, Shamil. I too worked a little in > DataFlex, but never dbVista. I once met and interviewed Robert Carr, > architect of Framework -- perhaps my fave program ever written, though his > choice of language syntax was asinine... but that's neither here nor there. > Robert impressed me as one of the smartest people I have ever met. After > Framework he ventured into areas with promise, I guess, but they didn't pan > out. The handwriting recognition stuff, and so on. > > I think I'll try to reconnect with him and see what he's up to. > > Access is like a truly gifted bastard child in the MS family. Nobody wants > to admit its progeny. Nobody wants to admit that given any 89 problems, you > can solve them more quickly in Access than in any other MS development tool. > I feel profoundly sorry for the Access development team. They try to please > us -- and for their efforts I am extremely grateful -- but they get shat > upon from above because Access was intended to be a stupid little toy for > the great unwashed and uneducated. So there are these development folks, > writing a powerhouse tool, that the Bosses not only don't want to hear about > but regard as a threat to the more profitable revenue streams. > > A handful of the Access team should quit MS and launch an Access-compiler > project. This is very parallel to how Clipper came about. Ashton-Tate > refused to release a compiler, and Brian Russell had the vision to quit the > Framework development team and architect Clipper. Rich McConnell played a > big part but it was Brian's vision that got it from drawing board to > delivered product. Not to say others didn't help, but it was Brian and Rich > that made it happen. > > We need some players like that in the Access world. None of us knows enough > about the internals to pull it off. It takes members of the development team > with the guts to quit and the ambitions to release a killer product. > > Just think about it. Suppose you could do everything you can in Access, and > then compile the result into a stand-alone product that doesn't require the > run-time or anything else, and compiles to say 2mb per app. > > Arthur > > -----Original Message----- > From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil > Salakhetdinov > Sent: July 17, 2005 8:48 AM > To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues > Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Dearly Departed Databases (R.I.P.) > > DataFlex - I did work with it in 1993-1994 - it was great, OOP, 4GL etc. - > it was widely used epecially in Autralia and Sweden, UK etc. - is getting > nowehere now? > > dbVista (Raima Data Manager) - great too, C/C++ centric, cross-platform(PC > OSes) mainly used in embedded systems now.... > > Ashton Tate Framework - great tool - anscestor of all nowadays Office > suits... > > MS Access :) - it's getting depreciated now as a development tool(?) - not a > mainstream development tool like my collegue working at MS (:) ) says - do > you agree? :))) > > Shamil > > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com