3 ms·

I wonder how many people became actual programmers due to Access. I feel like MS can't remove it just like you can't remove the second rung of a ladder.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
Even if MS feels they can't remove it - the fact they haven't made any significant improvements to it (even those to keep it usable on modern computers) means it will die a slow death and leave people stranded - the same way they did with VB6. For example, the SQL text editor in Access is so broken if you copy and paste tab characters they're displayed as zero-width and break text rendering (if you click+drag to create a text-selection the selection will cover the wrong text) and you usually get a syntax error if you make any changes to the query after pasting it (but if you don't modify it then it's fine). Never mind the lack of syntax-coloring or auto-completion. Microsoft says they are not planning on making any changes to the SQL text editor: https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-application/suggestions/10263849-provide-a-better-sql-editor https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-ap... There's also a fun bug where the outermost LEFT OUTER JOIN in a query with 2 or more other joins will fail if the right-hand table has zero rows (but will work if the right-hand table has zero matching rows).
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  The SQL text editor in Access is so frustrating! As soon as you switch the tab you're looking at, it will change your carefully-formatted query into a condensed unreadable mess.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I managed to corrupt my database and make all of the code irretrievable just by pasting a line that was too long, if I remember correctly. Luckily I was making daily backups. I also ran into a bug where if you read a long calculated text field from a view/query through VBA, it corrupts everything after 255 characters, even though you can get the data otherwise through the interface or save it to a table. Googling suggested this problem had existed for 10-15 years. Also, a lot of times your query will return neither a value or null, but "#error". And I really hate the way it destroys all your formatting whenever you save a query. Every time I need to change something, I end up copying to a text editor and formatting by hand in order to find whatever error I just introduced.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago

Even if MS feels they can't remove it - the fact they haven't made any significant improvements to it (even those to keep it usable on modern computers) means it will die a slow death and leave people stranded - the same way they did with VB6. For example, the SQL text editor in Access is so broken if you copy and paste tab characters they're displayed as zero-width and break text rendering (if you click+drag to create a text-selection the selection will cover the wrong text) and you usually get a syntax error if you make any changes to the query after pasting it (but if you don't modify it then it's fine). Never mind the lack of syntax-coloring or auto-completion. Microsoft says they are not planning on making any changes to the SQL text editor: https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-application/suggestions/10263849-provide-a-better-sql-editor https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-ap... There's also a fun bug where the outermost LEFT OUTER JOIN in a query with 2 or more other joins will fail if the right-hand table has zero rows (but will work if the right-hand table has zero matching rows).

alexhutcheson 7y ago
The SQL text editor in Access is so frustrating! As soon as you switch the tab you're looking at, it will change your carefully-formatted query into a condensed unreadable mess.
perl4ever 7y ago
I managed to corrupt my database and make all of the code irretrievable just by pasting a line that was too long, if I remember correctly. Luckily I was making daily backups. I also ran into a bug where if you read a long calculated text field from a view/query through VBA, it corrupts everything after 255 characters, even though you can get the data otherwise through the interface or save it to a table. Googling suggested this problem had existed for 10-15 years. Also, a lot of times your query will return neither a value or null, but "#error". And I really hate the way it destroys all your formatting whenever you save a query. Every time I need to change something, I end up copying to a text editor and formatting by hand in order to find whatever error I just introduced.