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Excel is basically a 4GL at this point replacing Foxpro and other. The only thing I've seen Access is used for is ODBC connections to databases.

• aksss 6y ago
  Access is an interesting beast. Much maligned by IT shops everywhere. But it’s pretty powerful when you think about it as excel with a relational table model and a built-in reporting interface. I mean it makes all the sense in the world why it exists as a business tool, but it’s a cul-de-sac, usually tipping you off that it’s time for a “real” database and/or some COTS apps. Been decades since I seriously used Access, was before I ever got really exposed to true RDBMS’s and writing against them. But it’s probably where I got introduced to SQL, something a surprising number of developers don’t know these days.
  • not_knuth 6y ago
    Tell me more about these developers that don't know SQL. How is that possible? What line of work is this in?
    • yumaikas 6y ago
      Front end dev, video games, devs that use Firebase or Mongodb all the time? Devs that work in companies where only a trusted few touch the database, and everyone else works on their abstractions? Heck, with stuff like Rails, you can mostly treat the DB as a strongly typed KV store unless people want heavy reporting. SQL is useful to know, but it's hardly necessary in today's world.