4 ms·

And Access! That's one amazing piece of software.

fredsmith219 4y ago
Access could easily become a victim of its own success if the dataset got too large. I made some money off of a couple projects where that happened. I had to convert them to sqlserver to both handle the data load and for true multiuser.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  That is true. People don't understand that there is an upper limit to Access before you run into issues - but it's fairly large.. what was it? 4GB? Edit: 2gb!
  - philbarr 4y ago
    Aaah - back in the day when we used to link 26 Access databases together, one for the first letter of a customer's surname... :)
    - whstl 4y ago
      You can add "built a custom database partitioning system" to your resumé. :)
  - whstl 4y ago
    Funny: back in the late 90s I ran a quite large (for the time) discussion board and everything was stored in an Access MDB file, similar to how people try to do today with SQLite. I didn't know better, that's how I though things worked. It worked quite well for several years, until of course I reached a limit (which was much smaller than 4GB), and I had to delete old posts.
  - lproven 4y ago
    It's worse than that. The thing that imposes these limitations is the somewhat primitive DB engine for Access, which is codenamed MS Jet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Database_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Database_Engine But the big that MS & MS fans don't like to mention is that MS Exchange Server uses a version of the same storage engine. It's not mentioned even once in these Wikipedia articles, for instance, but if you look, you will find telltale giveaways such as Exchange store size limitations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_... However, if you dig a little, you'll find that the underlying storage engine is also codenamed "Jet": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Storage_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Storage_Engine Jet Red vs Jet Blue. Totally different, honest. These days, it's also used in trivial unimportant Windows subsystems such as -- er -- Active Directory, Windows Update, and the Windows Search indices. Yes, the fragile, essentially single-user, easily-corrupted Access DB engine is an integral part of Windows Server. Which is a bit odd considering MS also owns SQL Server (bought in from Sybase), and could in principle use that instead, which does not have these built-in limitations and is rather more robust. Access was in part built in response to Lotus Approach, which brought Claris Filemaker-like simplicity to Windows end-user databases. MS could not tolerate that, so built its own Approach-killer, which was vastly more complex. It acquired FoxPro, a dBase III/IV clone, for its very fast indexing functionality, which was bolted onto MS Cirrus to make Access, and the rest of FoxPro went largely unmaintained until it could be discontinued. Exchange Server of course replaced MS Mail, which was also bought in and was previously called Network Courier from Consumers Software. Other MS purchases include Powerpoint, Frontpage, Visual BASIC, and Visio. There is a general pattern evidence in 1990s MS software which isn't universal but widespread. If it's lean, mean, simple, fast, or elegant, it was bought in. If it's overcomplex, fragile, has bizarre limitations for non-obvious reasons, and needs careful maintenance, it was built in-house, probably in response to a successful competing product.
    - jjkaczor 4y ago
      Sigh - don't get me started on Jet engine DB corruption... You wink at it, over a network with more than a single user - and you have a chance of corruption...
      - lproven 4y ago
        Exactly! (I was a certified Exchange admin, in the 1990s, and have cleaned up several big corporate systems that collapsed.) It is not the tool you want for business-critical shared network data stores. And yet, the pairing of Exchange and Outlook is THE MS critical tool that's won them a million corporate accounts. That's a million corporates, of course. Not seats. Hundreds of millions of seats.
    - nereye 4y ago
      The other competitor was Borland Paradox. IIRC there is an easter egg in Microsoft Access 1.0 where the About box changes to an animation of a pond with two ducks in it that are then hit by lightning from a cloud above. I.e. a cirrus and a 'pair of ducks'...
      - lproven 4y ago
        > The other competitor was Borland Paradox. Yes, true. I was never a database guy but my impression at the time was that this was more of a capable tool for pros who wanted to do machine-local standalone stuff, whereas Approach won reviews and tests for ease of use. OTOH saying that I've seen amateurs do amazing stuff with Access by trial and error.... > IIRC there is an easter egg in Microsoft Access [...] > a cirrus and a 'pair of ducks'... :-o That is harsh!
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  When I worked with Access it was normal to separate the database into separate front end and back end. Then when the quantity of data or latency got too large you could easily convert that to SQL Server.
bena 4y ago
No. Fuck Access. Access is a useless piece of software that serves no purpose well. Either your data is small enough to be managed by Excel or your data is complex enough to be better served by a database and frontend. Dealing with the idiosyncrasies of Access is never worth it.
- cutler 4y ago
  So how do you build a desktop database with a staff user interface for a small business running on a couple of Windows desktops?
  - anthk 4y ago
    Lazarus + SQLite. Problem solved.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      Why won't you accept this isn't a workable solution for the vast majority of people? Comments like this give me a brief moment of wanting every engineer in tech (me included) to be laid off and replaced with excel people
      - bena 4y ago
        Why isn't it? If your situation has reached the point where Excel is no longer a workable solution, you need a full application. I've never seen an Access application that didn't grow to a point where it wasn't a glitchy mess requiring a rewrite as a full stand-alone application. So you might as well skip that step and go straight to the stand-alone application. It's an unnecessary bridge.
        snapcaster 4y ago
        You understand that the people who are making Excel and Access apps aren't professional software developers right?
    - 4y ago
afavour 4y ago
IMO Access is the real undervalued hero. Most spreadsheets using more than a few VLOOKUPs should really be a simple database instead.

Access could easily become a victim of its own success if the dataset got too large. I made some money off of a couple projects where that happened. I had to convert them to sqlserver to both handle the data load and for true multiuser.

deafpolygon 4y ago
That is true. People don't understand that there is an upper limit to Access before you run into issues - but it's fairly large.. what was it? 4GB? Edit: 2gb!
- philbarr 4y ago
  Aaah - back in the day when we used to link 26 Access databases together, one for the first letter of a customer's surname... :)
  - whstl 4y ago
    You can add "built a custom database partitioning system" to your resumé. :)
- whstl 4y ago
  Funny: back in the late 90s I ran a quite large (for the time) discussion board and everything was stored in an Access MDB file, similar to how people try to do today with SQLite. I didn't know better, that's how I though things worked. It worked quite well for several years, until of course I reached a limit (which was much smaller than 4GB), and I had to delete old posts.
- lproven 4y ago
  It's worse than that. The thing that imposes these limitations is the somewhat primitive DB engine for Access, which is codenamed MS Jet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Database_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Database_Engine But the big that MS & MS fans don't like to mention is that MS Exchange Server uses a version of the same storage engine. It's not mentioned even once in these Wikipedia articles, for instance, but if you look, you will find telltale giveaways such as Exchange store size limitations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_... However, if you dig a little, you'll find that the underlying storage engine is also codenamed "Jet": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Storage_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Storage_Engine Jet Red vs Jet Blue. Totally different, honest. These days, it's also used in trivial unimportant Windows subsystems such as -- er -- Active Directory, Windows Update, and the Windows Search indices. Yes, the fragile, essentially single-user, easily-corrupted Access DB engine is an integral part of Windows Server. Which is a bit odd considering MS also owns SQL Server (bought in from Sybase), and could in principle use that instead, which does not have these built-in limitations and is rather more robust. Access was in part built in response to Lotus Approach, which brought Claris Filemaker-like simplicity to Windows end-user databases. MS could not tolerate that, so built its own Approach-killer, which was vastly more complex. It acquired FoxPro, a dBase III/IV clone, for its very fast indexing functionality, which was bolted onto MS Cirrus to make Access, and the rest of FoxPro went largely unmaintained until it could be discontinued. Exchange Server of course replaced MS Mail, which was also bought in and was previously called Network Courier from Consumers Software. Other MS purchases include Powerpoint, Frontpage, Visual BASIC, and Visio. There is a general pattern evidence in 1990s MS software which isn't universal but widespread. If it's lean, mean, simple, fast, or elegant, it was bought in. If it's overcomplex, fragile, has bizarre limitations for non-obvious reasons, and needs careful maintenance, it was built in-house, probably in response to a successful competing product.
  - jjkaczor 4y ago
    Sigh - don't get me started on Jet engine DB corruption... You wink at it, over a network with more than a single user - and you have a chance of corruption...
    - lproven 4y ago
      Exactly! (I was a certified Exchange admin, in the 1990s, and have cleaned up several big corporate systems that collapsed.) It is not the tool you want for business-critical shared network data stores. And yet, the pairing of Exchange and Outlook is THE MS critical tool that's won them a million corporate accounts. That's a million corporates, of course. Not seats. Hundreds of millions of seats.
  - nereye 4y ago
    The other competitor was Borland Paradox. IIRC there is an easter egg in Microsoft Access 1.0 where the About box changes to an animation of a pond with two ducks in it that are then hit by lightning from a cloud above. I.e. a cirrus and a 'pair of ducks'...
    - lproven 4y ago
      > The other competitor was Borland Paradox. Yes, true. I was never a database guy but my impression at the time was that this was more of a capable tool for pros who wanted to do machine-local standalone stuff, whereas Approach won reviews and tests for ease of use. OTOH saying that I've seen amateurs do amazing stuff with Access by trial and error.... > IIRC there is an easter egg in Microsoft Access [...] > a cirrus and a 'pair of ducks'... :-o That is harsh!
kwhitefoot 4y ago
When I worked with Access it was normal to separate the database into separate front end and back end. Then when the quantity of data or latency got too large you could easily convert that to SQL Server.

bena 4y ago

No. Fuck Access. Access is a useless piece of software that serves no purpose well. Either your data is small enough to be managed by Excel or your data is complex enough to be better served by a database and frontend. Dealing with the idiosyncrasies of Access is never worth it.

cutler 4y ago
So how do you build a desktop database with a staff user interface for a small business running on a couple of Windows desktops?
- anthk 4y ago
  Lazarus + SQLite. Problem solved.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Why won't you accept this isn't a workable solution for the vast majority of people? Comments like this give me a brief moment of wanting every engineer in tech (me included) to be laid off and replaced with excel people
    - bena 4y ago
      Why isn't it? If your situation has reached the point where Excel is no longer a workable solution, you need a full application. I've never seen an Access application that didn't grow to a point where it wasn't a glitchy mess requiring a rewrite as a full stand-alone application. So you might as well skip that step and go straight to the stand-alone application. It's an unnecessary bridge.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        You understand that the people who are making Excel and Access apps aren't professional software developers right?
  - 4y ago

afavour 4y ago

IMO Access is the real undervalued hero. Most spreadsheets using more than a few VLOOKUPs should really be a simple database instead.