Forms over linked tables from MySQL or Oracle are a perfect use case for Access even in 2019. Initial setup is messy but it can be automated for end users.
Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
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Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#22Is there a modern and/or open alternative to this? E.g a SQLite + electron or local web client thing where you could build a simple inventory or similar but you should also be able to scale it to client server when the need occurs 10 years down. Note that any number of cloud startups don’t count as an alternative to access. When these things start it’s as an excel sheet with data that no one will go through the enter…
I think that Open/Libre-Office have options for this. You can also use Access as a front end for another db (odbc) backend pretty easily.
I'd probably do a web app myself, but that's just me. I know a lot of people that cut their programming teeth on Access apps, including distributed ones.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#23This is the question I always wanted to ask, I almost wrote an Ask HN... Who use Microsoft Access in 2019?! An obvious case is creating a glorified/enhanced Excel for some specific office tasks, another case is that some applications use ".mdb" backend. But that's all? edit: What I'm interested in is cases of using Access for something other than a specific Excel-like office task - it seems Access is still used for s…
Access also makes for a decent CRUD admin interface for any ODBC database, SQL or otherwise.
Bingo. It shines as a UI over linked tables.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#24This is the question I always wanted to ask, I almost wrote an Ask HN... Who use Microsoft Access in 2019?! An obvious case is creating a glorified/enhanced Excel for some specific office tasks, another case is that some applications use ".mdb" backend. But that's all? edit: What I'm interested in is cases of using Access for something other than a specific Excel-like office task - it seems Access is still used for s…
Warehousing/Distribution industry without budgets for proper ERPs or inventory management.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#25The reason that both Access and Excel use is so prevalent in corporate “shadow IT” land is because there are many parts of the business that have problems for which only a negative or marginal business-case can be made for IT to solve it (given the “get out of bed” costs of most IT departments). It’s a barrier-to-entry problem. Excel and Access are cheap enough and fly under the corporate IT radar (no involvement nee…
Access is the perfect tool for an intelligent, technically-minded person with limited programming experience to create an application to replace spreadsheets.
There are a lot of those kinds of people out there, and they're extremely useful in introducing minor optimizations that other people wouldn't be able to find. Access is for that guy who says "I know there's a better way to do this," but doesn't have access (no pun intended) to a team of programmers and a project manager.
I didn't major in programming in undergrad but I've taken classes here and there, so in my first job out of college I replaced a really awful system of spreadsheet-jockeying with an Access DB.
I considered other options, but that it's self contained and NOT a web application is a feature, not a bug. I couldn't get access to the corporate database, so I just ran the Access DB on a network drive. It's still probably there, ten years later, running happily on its own.
Honestly, it seems like the fix for Access... is a better version of Access. It fills a very useful niche, between spreadsheets and full-fledged applications designed by programmers. It's so much easier to make a quick app that works for your organization than get an external team of programmers involved, who will probably tell you "no" or remain unconvinced that you're worth helping.
With Access, you don't need political clout, you don't need years of experience, you don't need a title. Just build an Access application and get kudos from everyone in your team for making their lives easier.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#26The reason that both Access and Excel use is so prevalent in corporate “shadow IT” land is because there are many parts of the business that have problems for which only a negative or marginal business-case can be made for IT to solve it (given the “get out of bed” costs of most IT departments). It’s a barrier-to-entry problem. Excel and Access are cheap enough and fly under the corporate IT radar (no involvement nee…
I think Developers also underestimate IT Setup Costs for a DB since its so easy to do it locally. Setting up a simple RDBMS like MySql or Postgres and skinning with with a basic, out of the box UI is an afternoon of work if you need to look up commands, or minutes if you have done it recently.
But setting up something for a Team immediately opens questions like Access Rights (Can we limit this just to the team, or even have profiles?), Security (Needs to plan nice on the VPN/intranet), Scalability (in theory easy, but provisioning/managing VMs is hard), and Recoverability (where are the backups stored and who makes them). Those are all hard problems from not just a technical perspective, but also a business one.
But that is just the technical hurdles, not the process ones. In a well (overly?) managed system it can take a handful of people multiple meetings and possibly hundred of man hours to add a new field to a form. Adding the field is trivial, but deciding all the business rules around it is hard. If you run your own system, you can ignore any established process.
So its two fold. Its not just IT start up costs, its also getting everyone to agree on changes to an existing system, versus running your own.
I would argue many of the costs associated with migrating from Access to a "real" DB, is not the actual migration script, but the reassessment of all the business decisions that went into the design of the Access schema. Usually a committee evaluates if they are valid, and what to do with existing data to make it conform to a new schema.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#27Anyone want to suggest alternates? What's the "whip it up in a few hours" for "power users" today?
Google forms + spreadsheet
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#28Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#29Anyone want to suggest alternates? What's the "whip it up in a few hours" for "power users" today?
Google forms + spreadsheet
Access is the "too much for Excel, not enough for an RDBMS" solution. If it's too much for Excel, it's way too much for Google Spreadsheets, which is far behind Excel in functionality.
Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die
#30I have a special place in my heart for Access, its where I first started making money writing software and learned SQL and VB. Its where I really felt like I was making something that solved real world problems for people, quickly at that.
It was actually amazing how far it could scale, you could put a shared MDB file out on a Novell network share and have 30 concurrent users with no server app at all, users just doubled clicked the MDB.
I still think there is a killing to made on a modern day Access "Done Right". DB, Gui framework and printable report generator all in one sharing the same language front to back, top to bottom.