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Great article. Microsoft Access was my first introduction to databases. (For those who don't know, MS Access is like "excel for databases.") Gave me a good-enou
by lmg643 10y ago
Great article. Microsoft Access was my first introduction to databases. (For those who don't know, MS Access is like "excel for databases.") Gave me a good-enough sense of what was happening under the hood. Started me on a career in software. 15 years later, I'm in a recently updated version of enterprise SQL Server (say what you will, but it works for us). I chuckle every time i get to write IIF(x,y,z) in a SELECT statement. I was doing that in access in 2003.
- mirimir 10y agoExcel and Access are amazingly good products. The Jet SQL syntax is a little strange, but Access will handle substantial datasets. You can workaround the table size limit using views. It won't be fast, but it will work.
- ianamartin 10y agoI'm not so sure I agree about access, but I totally agree about excel. I mostly use Mac and but I will always keep a Windows box around if only to run excel. Sometimes that's the tool you need for the job, and no other will work as quickly or as well. The windows excel team knocks it out of the park pretty much every time.
- mirimir 10y agoI love mainly two things about Excel. One is calculation on multiple cores. The other is grace in handling huge files. I've worked with 100MB files in Excel. If I turn off auto calculation, that's actually workable. Linux spreadsheet apps tend to fall over and die when files get too big, or there are too many formulas.
- Vexs 10y agoLibreoffice calc is the only bit of libre software I've ever found inferior to the non-libre version. Excel is just that good, and most people use it as "Microsoft Grid Paper 2016"
- kawera 10y agoExcel for Mac is excellent too. Any particular reason for using the Windows version?
- jpau 10y agoExcel for Mac is excellent, compared to the wider market. Unfortunately it is both missing many features and runs much slower than its Windows equivalent. For the work I do (as a financial analyst), Excel for Mac is unworkable. See Microsoft's side-by-side comparison - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Compare-Excel-2016-for-Mac-with-Excel-2013-for-Windows-1b24f293-739c-4120-b884-893b6687e0d0 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Compare-Excel-2016-...
- p_l 10y agoThe real big power of Access was that it could use other database engines through ODBC. Quick RAD tool for databases!
- glaberficken 10y agoThat's exactly how I use Access at work. We host all the data on MS SQL Server that is managed by the IT department (scheduled imports, maintenance etc) and then everyone links to the tables from Access where they create queries with the visual wizard. these can then be linked to from Excel to produce reports where a layman can just do data refresh to update. Makes for a really flexible data reporting workflow that fits the knowledge level of each user. SQL Server (Data Tables and Views) >>> Access (Queries via visual wizard) >>> Excel (Reports linked via MS Query) PS: We also use data cubes (SQL Analysis Services) but those have to be setup on the IT side, so we tend to disfavour them due to depending on a bottleneck human resource. Although with Cubes you can write Cube formulas straight from excel bypassing the Access stpe
- mkane848 10y agoAccess Web Apps, on the other hand, are a nightmare. So many stripped features compared to what the Desktop version can do, it was incredibly frustrating to use.
- m_mueller 10y agoImagine what Microsoft could have made out of Access. It really should have been extended to a full blown multi-user server/client DB system, keeping the RAD capabilities. It would have really rocked as a replacement for all the Lotus Notes databases (that are still around). Instead we got SharePoint :(
- p_l 10y agoIt already was such a system - configure the database to use a named ODBC data source that points to shared server instead of JET file, distribute, run.
- dan_b 10y agoI started off with an Access database. Then we split the JET DB backend out from the front end and put that on a shared drive. Then we replaced the backend with SQL Server (without changing the front end.) Then eventually it all got migrated to an ASP.Net backend + single page application. It's still running 8 years later. Access is an incredibly flexible tool.