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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

#251

Post by pjmlp »

mobjack wrote: post #151
SigmundA wrote: post #30

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…

Access is highly underrated. I was able to build a CRUD app with 20 concurrent users in a month just using a shared directory to host the backend database. It would have taken a team of engineers 6 months to do the same properly developing a Java web app with Oracle database. Access does have such easy WYSIWYG reporting tools that I still miss.

You can do the same in Java.

Netbeans with Swing UI designer and database bean components.

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

#252

Post by TeMPOraL »

ebiester wrote: post #139
asdfman123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know you say that being something other than a web application is a feature, but we have Microsoft's replacement for access in Office 365 and it's PowerApps combined with Flow. I haven't been able to dive too deeply, and it definitely has a learning curve, but so did access. Further, data is actually backed up and permissions can be applied. I also have fondness for Access, but I think that we have a chance for som…

O365 still gives you desktop versions of the Office software. It does makes me a little worried, but I'm hoping Microsoft isn't suicidal and won't pull the plug on desktop software, leaving us only with the half-featured web versions.

Flow is interesting, but AFAIR it requires extra clicking in the administrative interface to get running, so it might not work for shadow IT as well as Access does.

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

#253

Post by TeMPOraL »

cryptonector wrote: post #66
phs318u wrote: 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…

Everything needs to be self-service as much as possible. Need a SQL Server / PostgreSQL DB for your project, got click some buttons on a page and get back a URI for your database. Automate, automate, automate.

That goes against typical IT policy that if people don't use something they can't break it, so let's make sure they can't use shared IT resources.

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

#254

Post by MayeulC »

rym_ wrote: post #233

I was once (or maybe still am) one of these power users. Started out with writing VBA macro's in excel to automate some work, probably created some monstrosities in excel. Then migrated over to MS Access and eventually taught myself proper (MS-)SQL which I have been developing in for over 9 years. One of my crutches is exactly that, that SQL is more or less the only language I have mastered and when I while I feel li…

If you don't need it to be on the web, Python + Sqlite isn't too bad. Then a GUI like pyqt could do the trick (with UI designed in Qt designer). It still requires some coding, though.

If you need it to be on the web, php + Mysql is probably one of the easiest to learn. The cool kids might have moved to something else, like node or django, though. It also requires learning done basic HTML, but the complexity is reasonable.

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

#255

Post by TeMPOraL »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #92
cc81 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it is budget or just needing someone to drive it through a heavy process. It is also not always worth it if you cannot show a real business case. The thing might help you and it might be worth it if you hack something together yourself but if IT is suppose to build something that is available, has support, has disaster recovery, is patched etc. it might no longer be easy to find the business case for it.

Exactly, to get professional IT resources you need to demonstrate a business case, go through many decision boards and budget allocations, defend it for months, and be ready to be pointed out if it doesn't reach its promises. So in the end people hack it in Excel or Access. No need to ask permission, no budget issues, no blame if it's not great.

Also: little or no waste happened if it doesn't pan out. Your Access prototype doesn't seem to make you and your team work faster? Copy out the little data you've put in there to Excel, SHIFT+DEL the Access file, and you're done. You've wasted few hours. That beats wasting several man-months of IT time only to not use the result in the end.

Access is agile in the truest form. It lets you prototype and refine in an extremely tight feedback loop, until what you have is a working solution for your specific problems.

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

#256

Post by TeMPOraL »

alkonaut wrote: post #12

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…

> but you should also be able to scale it to client server when the need occurs 10 years down.

YAGNI. Why not just go with a process that you can't scale to that hypothetical use case, and once that process reaches maturity (stops being adjusted every week) and grows to the point scaling becomes a real consideration, and not just theoretical one - only then hire resources to migrate it to a new system that's scalable?

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

#257

Post by lawzup »

Bombthecat wrote: post #239
lstamour wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, ODBC still works: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/administer-odbc-dat... though because this is Microsoft and we can’t have nice things, it might not: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/access/... For SQLite there’s https://github.com/softace/sqliteodbc but at that point I might pick a different DB for a more established ODBC driver. Or just use Access...

But this requires admin access to install? No?

yes it requires admin access

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

#258

Post by rym_ »

MayeulC wrote: post #254
rym_ wrote: post #233

I was once (or maybe still am) one of these power users. Started out with writing VBA macro's in excel to automate some work, probably created some monstrosities in excel. Then migrated over to MS Access and eventually taught myself proper (MS-)SQL which I have been developing in for over 9 years. One of my crutches is exactly that, that SQL is more or less the only language I have mastered and when I while I feel li…

If you don't need it to be on the web, Python + Sqlite isn't too bad. Then a GUI like pyqt could do the trick (with UI designed in Qt designer). It still requires some coding, though. If you need it to be on the web, php + Mysql is probably one of the easiest to learn. The cool kids might have moved to something else, like node or django, though. It also requires learning done basic HTML, but the complexity is reason…

I've dabbled a bit in Python here and there and indeed I feel this is most likely the route I will take, before web (as this is not a requirement for me as of now).

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

#259

Post by TeMPOraL »

egdod wrote: post #214

> You've completed your member preview for this month, but when you sign up for a free Medium account, you get one more story. Literally worse than blogspot in every way.

Not really. The Blogger/Blogspot UI is a special case of steaming garbage. It's a heavy-weight, bloated webapp whose primary task is to display a few kilobytes of static text on the screen. I think they should be used as a case study of what can go wrong within a team for a blog engine to look like that.

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

#260

Post by steve1977 »

kn0where wrote: post #173
tbyehl wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because they were all Mac users -- in the early days it was an Apple (Claris) product.

Fun fact: it’s still owned by Apple

Another fun fact: The company just rebranded itself to Claris again this summer.
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