Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by deaddodo » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #84

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…

Salesforce, the core database/CRUD bit of it if you ignore all the stuff they've purchased and tacked-on in the last few years, is essentially 'Access in the cloud', in terms of the sorts of things you can do and the ease with which you can do it, and how far you can stretch it before it starts to get cumbersome. And yes, they are making a killing. edit: And if that sounds easy, imagine how you would go about upgradi…

While I agree fundamentally with your premise, I would have to point out that MS Access was always software-as-a-service for developers. Ultimately, while it was accessible, the idea was to give powerful tools to developers to refine an interface/toolset for users.

SalesForce, on the other hand, seems to be more a platform-as-a-service targeted at the user with aspects such as SOQL instead feeling like a bolt-on to give developers access to the data.

So while they fill the same business case, they approach it from a completely opposite perspective.

(Source: software engineer that had to work with SalesForce and other CRM tools extensively while working with data engineers; and that has worked with pre-dotNet ASP + MS Access)

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

#222

Post by senderista » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

When I was consulting I probably got a call to recover a corrupted Access database at least once a week.

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

#223

Post by sqldba » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

What’s weird is that they don’t address those issues and improve or replace it.

There’s nothing in the easy database/UI space at the moment and it has gone unfilled for a long time.

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

#224

Post by leeman2016 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

I find MS Access not as intuitive as the other siblings though. Wish there was a "You Suck at Access" video like this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c]

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

#225

Post by blihp » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:20 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #187

mobjack wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was never more productive than using Access. Once wrote a full budgeting, cost estimating tool. Supposedly impossible. (Access' VBA had an 'eval' function.) We lost something in the switch from "workgroup" (dBase thru Paradox) to client/server. Spoiler: ODBC broke the tight coupling of code and persistence. Spawning monstrous hacks like ORMs and ActiveRecord. What Ted Neward famously called The Vietnam of Computer…

The thing that was lost quite frankly was most of the value that desktop productivity software used to provide before Microsoft consumed the market with Windows. It's not that client/server couldn't provide the same (or even better) value, it's that the companies left standing (think Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc.) had no interest in providing maximum value to customers. They wanted to extract maximum value from customers.

Access was created to compete with and replace those single-user and workgroup dBase-era software solutions from the 80's and early 90's. It helped them to cover the bases of the 'professional' desktop use cases as they won people over with Windows. With that mission complete and all competitors long gone, Microsoft now needs to kill off Access to get more people migrated over to SQL Server solutions which will allow them to extract more value from their customer base.

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

#226

Post by MarcScott » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

I used to teach students MS Access, as well as the entire Office Suite.

At the time I questioned the validity of teaching them to use Access, as I was pretty sure that it was little more than a toy program, and would never be used in the wild by proper businesses.

Then at a mate's wedding one of the guests turned out to be a database admin at a large financial institution. I mentioned my opinions on teaching Access to students, and how pointless it was, and he laughed at me.

His response was that he'd often be asked to build a database to do xyz by management, and his reply would normally be something along the lines of...

"Sure, we can get a secure database, that talks to the other systems and does everything you need, with a web interface in a week or so."

Management would give him disapproving stares.

"Or I could knock you up an Access database in a couple of hours that'll do the job."

Management's response - "Yeah, just do that."

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

#227

Post by blihp » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:58 AM UTC

zokier wrote: post #57

tabtab wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OO/LO "Base" is a pile crap in my opinion. People often develop smallish CRUD apps in MS-Access in two weeks or less. It's up and going without fuss and muss and without fiddling with servers, containers, DBA's, etc. You have to admire its nimbleness. Yes, the database "crashes" fairly often, but it's easy to make frequent round-robin-style file-based backups using Windows Scheduler and DOS scripts. Most databases ca…

Whats wrong with Base? I haven't used it so I don't have any preconceptions about it.

It's a clunky front-end with a fragile back-end. While it superficially resembles Access if you squint your eyes, it can't provide more than a small fraction of its utility currently. Too many missing/broken bits.

I spent a couple decades as a power user of the MS Office suite and find that I can generally make Calc do what I need as a spreadsheet and even Writer as a word processor. However, pretty much every time I've tried to develop a solution in Base it turns into a fight and I end up throwing up my hands and going with a different database solution. Calc doesn't even work all that well with it... and it's one of the few applications that works with it at all.

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

#228

Post by ako » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

jdfellow wrote: post #177

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if sqlite could become this in the future.

I wonder how much effort it would take to build a desktop application providing a similar user experience to Access, using SQLite.

Maybe you can use Access as the front end to SQLite?

During my internship 25 years ago I build a system to register aircraft accidents and near accidents. This system used access 1.0 (Windows 3.1) as the front end, storing the data in Oracle 6, I think connected through Odbc.

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

#229

Post by ako » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:20 AM UTC

benhurmarcel wrote: post #88

james_s_tayler wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Airtable considered like modern day Access?

Except it requires your IT department to contract it, which makes it a non-starter for most "shadow IT" uses where Access excels.

Access running on your pc is also there because of your IT department.

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

#230

Post by lstamour » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:28 AM UTC

ako wrote: post #228

jdfellow wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much effort it would take to build a desktop application providing a similar user experience to Access, using SQLite.

Maybe you can use Access as the front end to SQLite? During my internship 25 years ago I build a system to register aircraft accidents and near accidents. This system used access 1.0 (Windows 3.1) as the front end, storing the data in Oracle 6, I think connected through Odbc.

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...