Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#101

Post by vram22 » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 11:06 PM UTC

Somewhat on this topic, does anyone know if Magic (the 4GL-ish software) is still used, and how it is these days? I had first heard of it when I got to know that a previous company that I worked at, were using it, commercially, for their clients. It was a somewhat unusual (AFAIK) software in that it was supposed to be table/menu-driven, and had maybe (in that early version) only something like 14 operations, using which, the manufacturers claimed, one could build pretty much any common business application. I found that interesting but never got a chance to work on it or try it out.

The company behind Magic was an Israeli one, Magic Enterprises, IIRC.

Update: I googled, this is their site:

magicsoftware.com

and they do have a free/trial version. Will check it out a bit later.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#102

Post by flukus » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 11:24 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #6

FileMaker Pro has been around forever and is still supported with new versions as far as I know.

I worked on a port of a filemaker database once. During this port but well before the end there was a power outage in the office and the discovered that the filemaker server had entered some sort of silent failure mode where it appeared to be working on the outside but wasn't writing anything to disk. It operated like this for months...

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#103

Post by sysdyne » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 5:23 AM UTC

Norther wrote: post #98

sysdyne wrote: post #94

In time SSD will kill SQL and CRUD so there is no need for another RDBMS.

Forgive my ignorance, but SSD? Do you mean solid state drives?

Yeah, I mean solid state drives.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#104

Post by hywel » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 7:53 AM UTC

I'm working on a product like this at the moment to solve exactly those problems. On Twitter @h_carver if you want to chat more! Or if you want to wait 6 months and find out why I shouldn't have been pursuing it ;)

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#105

Post by quickthrower2 » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 9:38 AM UTC

princekolt wrote: post #56

tyingq wrote: post #16

There are quite a few products that attempt to be a web based equivalent of Access. The two that seem to be the closest to me are Google's AppMaker ( https://developers.google.com/appmaker/ ) and Bubble.is ( https://bubble.is/ ). I call these two out because they both allow for coding when the "default path" runs into a wall, and both include more than just forms and tables. However, they both still have warts. Appma…

Is this Twitter's business model? Buy every company they can and shut them down?

More money than sense

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#106

Post by radva42 » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

schappim wrote: post #96

radva42 wrote: post #49

I'm working on such CRUD app builder, which might be interesting to you. It's self-hosted and because it's written in Golang the entire server is a single binary - users can simply download the binary, run it and that's it. The data is stored in PostgreSQL. The form builder generates JSON, which is stored in the database and the server builds the resulting app on the fly. I'm building the first demos as we speak. So…

Looks good! Heads up: Youtube video on https://www.formbolt.com/demos/walkthrough/deployed/ is broken on Desktop Safari Version 10.1.2 (12603.3.8). On creating an app (locally), app error-ed, but the app was visible after refreshing the page, (sorry I couldn't replicate again to get the exact wording). Might want to add "chmod +x" to the README for non-technical users. You might want to link to the apps over at local…

Thanks for the feedback, Marcus. I'll look into the issues you mentioned.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#107

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 12:54 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #59

scandox wrote: post #18

One of the things several colleagues have said to me over the years is that Access tended to be a dangerous tool in a large organisation: like Excel but on crack. You end up with a large number of autonomous, undocumented systems built on an ad-hoc basis by personnel who were often not even in a technical role. Personally I think that sounds like a great way to leverage the domain expertise of lots of different emplo…

You also end up with a mess of VBScript code that isn't versioned. When something breaks and someone calls IT, it really helps if IT knows the system exists. In a large organization, supporting disjointed business processes (or worse, fragile amateurish integrations) costs more than the software. At scale, consistency matters more than performance variance in some areas. Access is also a nightmare from a security sta…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#108

Post by Multicomp » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 1:50 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #85

Modern XBase clones like Flagship (Clipper clone, sort of), Harbour project (ditto), and many others come close. You still have to do some programming, but it is not too difficult for an IT-savvy non-programmer to pick up. Clipper apps still run many small businesses in India (I know for sure) and likely many other countries too. Data entry in such apps is extremely fast once the operator gets used to the app. They d…

Company I work at still has their core HR, payroll, security, inventory, customer service, and other systems in a Visual FoxPro application backended by a SQL database.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#109

Post by slimbods » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

Sharepoint fills the gap in many organisations. CRUD forms pretty quick to create off a sharepoint list/sql database.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone?

#110

Post by vram22 » Fri, Sep 15, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #108

vram22 wrote: post #85

Modern XBase clones like Flagship (Clipper clone, sort of), Harbour project (ditto), and many others come close. You still have to do some programming, but it is not too difficult for an IT-savvy non-programmer to pick up. Clipper apps still run many small businesses in India (I know for sure) and likely many other countries too. Data entry in such apps is extremely fast once the operator gets used to the app. They d…

Company I work at still has their core HR, payroll, security, inventory, customer service, and other systems in a Visual FoxPro application backended by a SQL database.

Cool!