7 ms·

So... they've reinvented Access?

by zyxley 10y ago

adzicg 10y ago
seems to be more geared towards reporting, so reinvented 'oracle forms' probably.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Or Filemaker, though the new versions seem more complex.
- thorin 10y ago
  Weird comment as oracle reports as their reporting tool. Forums was great for crud only business applications, actually the majority of business applications but it went downhill when it moved from client server to Web using applets... Apex is a good replacement.
minimaxir 10y ago
> The tool’s scores put it at the 52nd percentile in the category of business software, which isn’t bad for an academic research project. But the scores for Microsoft’s Access database program are much worse — around the sixth percentile It is apparently more useable than Access, which is damning by faint praise.
Pamar 10y ago
In my experience (which includes large companies from sectors like automotive and utilities) in most cases there is a large, RDBMS backed application doing something really critical... And then when you talk with actual users you discover a swarm of Excel files that either support or often second guess the corporate system. And it is not just reporting. In some cases inputting large quantities of tabular data is just done by writing Excel macros that create CSV files to upload to the system (and sometimes, horrifingly, the data are just retyped...).
- mtone 10y ago
  It's a scenario I've witnessed a few times too many now. Often an unsupported feature X is becoming critical to the team, so users reproduce large chunks of the corporate system in a separate spreadsheet in order to support the feature themselves, then build upon that. Without the ability to react quickly that smaller businesses have, I noticed that some form of resistance from IT is usually a big factor: lack of resources, divergent priorities or visions, unclear benefits from hypothetical feature, limited architecture, end-of-life maintenance states that end up lasting years, etc. Reality changes, systems fall behind, users adapt and spreadsheets are born. One root cause is that it's comparatively hard to add new data in a RDBMS - it usually requires a full development life cycle. On the other hand, spreadsheets are free, provide immediate benefits, allow users to define and refine requirements as they go, and can be abandoned at the drop of a hat (low risk). Quite the conundrum! From the article: > At present, Bakke’s tool enables query construction on an existing database, but it doesn’t enable the direct entry or modification of data. He expects to begin adding that functionality over the next six months Querying data is a problem with many good solutions nowadays, the bigger question is where and how to write that new data the users want to play with (other than in a spreadsheet).
  - EGreg 10y ago
    So why can't they use something like Irmin? https://github.com/mirage/irmin https://github.com/mirage/irmin
  - intrasight 10y ago
    >it's comparatively hard to add new data in a RDBMS I assume you meant to day "to add new schema". Adding new data is easy and in most enterprise environments is happening automatically every day. As far as "add new schema" goes, I'll claim that the database is just another software component, and if you pursuing an agile strategy, that you should be modifying that schema with every sprint. My client, for whom I do data warehouse consulting, updates the schema every two weeks. Because we are responsive to the business, they never revert to spreadsheet solutions. Of course they are free to create there own custom reports in spreadsheets - we'd never try to take that away. In fact we make it as easy as possible to run business curated queries and dump the data to Excel. Our newest feature for these power users is to allow them to give back to us the Excel reports they built and we will "push and deliver" - put the current data into the raw data sheets and deliver the report - usually to Sharepoint. Getting good business software solutions in place merely requires that the business hire some good developers. Why more don't do so remains a mystery. My best guess, like all things "corporate" is fear and laziness.
emmelaich 10y ago
or Query By Example (1975). But I'm sure much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_by_Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_by_Example
GlennS 10y ago
If someone actually did reinvent Access without the concurrency data-loss problems (but still as a single file per database), they'd probably make a lot of money.

So... they've reinvented Access?

by zyxley 10y ago

So... they've reinvented Access?

adzicg 10y ago

seems to be more geared towards reporting, so reinvented 'oracle forms' probably.

icebraining 10y ago
Or Filemaker, though the new versions seem more complex.
thorin 10y ago
Weird comment as oracle reports as their reporting tool. Forums was great for crud only business applications, actually the majority of business applications but it went downhill when it moved from client server to Web using applets... Apex is a good replacement.

minimaxir 10y ago

> The tool’s scores put it at the 52nd percentile in the category of business software, which isn’t bad for an academic research project. But the scores for Microsoft’s Access database program are much worse — around the sixth percentile It is apparently more useable than Access, which is damning by faint praise.

Pamar 10y ago

In my experience (which includes large companies from sectors like automotive and utilities) in most cases there is a large, RDBMS backed application doing something really critical... And then when you talk with actual users you discover a swarm of Excel files that either support or often second guess the corporate system. And it is not just reporting. In some cases inputting large quantities of tabular data is just done by writing Excel macros that create CSV files to upload to the system (and sometimes, horrifingly, the data are just retyped...).

mtone 10y ago
It's a scenario I've witnessed a few times too many now. Often an unsupported feature X is becoming critical to the team, so users reproduce large chunks of the corporate system in a separate spreadsheet in order to support the feature themselves, then build upon that. Without the ability to react quickly that smaller businesses have, I noticed that some form of resistance from IT is usually a big factor: lack of resources, divergent priorities or visions, unclear benefits from hypothetical feature, limited architecture, end-of-life maintenance states that end up lasting years, etc. Reality changes, systems fall behind, users adapt and spreadsheets are born. One root cause is that it's comparatively hard to add new data in a RDBMS - it usually requires a full development life cycle. On the other hand, spreadsheets are free, provide immediate benefits, allow users to define and refine requirements as they go, and can be abandoned at the drop of a hat (low risk). Quite the conundrum! From the article: > At present, Bakke’s tool enables query construction on an existing database, but it doesn’t enable the direct entry or modification of data. He expects to begin adding that functionality over the next six months Querying data is a problem with many good solutions nowadays, the bigger question is where and how to write that new data the users want to play with (other than in a spreadsheet).
- EGreg 10y ago
  So why can't they use something like Irmin? https://github.com/mirage/irmin https://github.com/mirage/irmin
- intrasight 10y ago
  >it's comparatively hard to add new data in a RDBMS I assume you meant to day "to add new schema". Adding new data is easy and in most enterprise environments is happening automatically every day. As far as "add new schema" goes, I'll claim that the database is just another software component, and if you pursuing an agile strategy, that you should be modifying that schema with every sprint. My client, for whom I do data warehouse consulting, updates the schema every two weeks. Because we are responsive to the business, they never revert to spreadsheet solutions. Of course they are free to create there own custom reports in spreadsheets - we'd never try to take that away. In fact we make it as easy as possible to run business curated queries and dump the data to Excel. Our newest feature for these power users is to allow them to give back to us the Excel reports they built and we will "push and deliver" - put the current data into the raw data sheets and deliver the report - usually to Sharepoint. Getting good business software solutions in place merely requires that the business hire some good developers. Why more don't do so remains a mystery. My best guess, like all things "corporate" is fear and laziness.

emmelaich 10y ago

or Query By Example (1975). But I'm sure much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_by_Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_by_Example

GlennS 10y ago

If someone actually did reinvent Access without the concurrency data-loss problems (but still as a single file per database), they'd probably make a lot of money.