Is Access Dead?
Microsoft Access has filled a niche in software tools for departmental applications for many years. It provides a lot of rich functionality for less technical individuals to use filling business data requirements when development resources are not available.
Some people have tried to create applications with a broader user base having different levels of success. The product does not lend itself to version control (although there are tools extracting different elements for versioning). It doesn’t necessarily scale well, even using SQL Server instead of Jet as a data stored.
Because it used data bound techniques, there are many problems that have to be overcome in multi-user configurations.
But, it continues to be a valuable product today simply because non-technical people can solve business needs rather easily. Why not use Excel for that problem? Because Excel presentation, reporting and storage are typically one and the same. Access provides separation from entry presentation and reporting. You can define multiple windows and reports against the same information easily.
For this reason many products became popular, many which still exist today. You see products like Access, Paradox, File Maker, Omnis, RBase, and many others. Typically, these were PC or Mac based products, with multiple user capabilities added as an afterthought.
The need for a product solving these kinds of business problems is not reduced at all. Still, many companies continue to have huge issues and conflict because Access applications accumulate, sometimes causing more problems than they solve.
Is Microsoft trying to meet the needs in a new way with LightSwitch? It provides the more user friendly development tools to less technical individuals. It provides code that may be expanded by a software professional, walking away from the original code. It also works in a disconnected way, something Access does not do in a native form.
Will this replace the Access Platform? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Does your company experience pain from supporting or converting departmental database efforts? Would you simply kill the whole concept of 4GL tools altogether? Send your comments to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
Featured White Paper(s)
Query Tuning Strategies for Microsoft SQL Server
Written by Quest Software
When you’re looking for a reliable tool to diagnose … (read more)
Featured Script
Multiple CTE In side a Single View
We will write two CTE and ObjectAndColumn and ObjectAndIndex and join them together to create a View . There are Many Advanta… (read more)