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The core of the article's argument is that databases accessible to non-programmers (like MS Access) died out because they conflicted with the profit motives of
by HideousKojima 6y ago
The core of the article's argument is that databases accessible to non-programmers (like MS Access) died out because they conflicted with the profit motives of the companies making them. This doesn't make much sense, you'd think there would be more open source projects to accomplish the same thing. SQLite is the closest I can think of, but even that isn't super accessible to non-programmers. I think the real issue is that a spreadsheet works for most basic stuff, and the gap where a spreadsheet is not enough but it's not complicated enough to need a full RDBMS is incredibly small.
- rektide 6y ago> you'd think there would be more open source projects to accomplish the same thing I would think there would be & I've been supremely disappointed open-source spent years trying to win the desktop rather than overthrow the tyranny of the application.
- dogma1138 6y agoI wouldn’t call MS access a DB that is accessible to non programmers, it’s a local DB with rather limited capabilities and performance. You can create a front end for non programmers to use for any DB, in fact MS Access when it was still part of Office could be used to manage remote DBs such as MSSQL. Now most of that functionality is embedded in Excel you can load and update tables fairly easily with external data sources. MS Access had a bit more functionality similar to some of the Oracle enterprise applications stack for local app development but it simply died when excel became more feature rich and when companies needed more than MS Access could offer. It basically came to the point where there was little real use for MS Access.
- xupybd 6y agoThese tools also require more than many users are willing to give. Spread sheets are an easy start for most users. Databases are scary and hard to learn for many.