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Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

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Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#111

Is 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…

As soon as you bring HTML and JS in, projects choke and die. There is just too much goldbricking and fiddling and fussing and yak shaving around possible, and almost none of it is in service of actually making anything. The friction binds the gears up horrifically. Something like WinForms with SQLite that didn't use Entity Framework would be far better. But really all we want is to get back to VB6 on top of Access. M…

> As soon as you bring HTML and JS in, projects choke and die.

True! I wonder whether making JS event handler in little textarea boxes would actually help. Select “Even handler for field ‘Name’ on ‘click’”, then program your event. Obviously the end result is a js file, but they user is guided...^W prevented from doing something else than modifying output before submission.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#112
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ev…

Plus, you need a server (ie. obtain one, set it up, and maintain it). With Access you just host it on the team's shared drive. In a large organization, getting a small server when you don't work in IT is not simple at all.

Add to that getting additional software installed.

In most large organisations non IT users have very limited permissions, even to their own machine.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#113

I 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 dou…

FileMaker Pro?

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#116

I 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 dou…

FileMaker Pro?

Exactly. I didn't understand the might of FileMaker Pro until I saw university employees at my alma mater working with it.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#117

Is 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 would love to build one some day. I have ventured into building a complete personal finance dashboard that was purely local, but lost steam in the investigation phase. I am guessing there is a market for desktop applications that can do these things once privacy becomes more important.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#118
post #7

The 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…

Yeah exactly. Working in an IT Dept when someone said "ah they've built a spreadsheet to do it, but now they want us to add that functionality to the main DB" we'd all roll our eyes because it was another lashed-together thing that we would have to unpick and re-implement. But the fact is, if they'd come straight to us and asked us to do it instead of doing it in Excel first, they would have had nothing, for years an…

Also you can consider the spreadsheet versions as a nearly feature complete & tested specification.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#119

I 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 dou…

> 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. Reminds me of Airtable, Monday, Notion or one of these all-purpose productivity tools

Airtable is really good for what it does : makes data-driven tools available for folks who don't want to mess with writing queries or being a DBA, and also has a reasonable API for automations.

For heavy stuff, I'll take Postgres anyday given the choice, but Airtable is great for small user-maintainable tools + dashboards, etc

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#120
post #109
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is to build a modern take of the fox/dbase family. I starting with the inner language http://tablam.org Access, as concept, is great . Is exactly what many need. But it have a lot of small deficiencies that make it disliked by developers. I have used FoxPro, and it have almost all the right things instead (Fox is Access, but goooood!... except a bit less user friendly). I wish I could dedicate to build this.…

I really like the idea of developing a modern Access alternative, but why are you trying to create a new language? Aren't QBE and SQL sufficient? Why not something that is like a cloud SaaS version of Access, but can be extended with some procedures and later used as a GraphQL backend like Hasura?

Salesforce is (among other things) basically a cloud SaaS version of Access. And people pay a lot of money for it. See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21403393
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