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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 com

by 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?
  - namaria 4y ago
    "Why don't everyone drive the same car as me? Dress the same as me? Read the same books, watch the same series, talk to the same people? It's clearly working great for me! Buncha rubes!"
- bena 4y ago
  If you're ok with your data being duplicated in multiple files, you're ok with Excel. If you want your data centralized, with the application being a portal to that data, you use a database with a frontend built in your choice of language.
deafpolygon 4y ago
If you have a spreadsheet on a share that you'd like multiple people to have concurrent access to, Excel is not the way to go (until now; nowadays you can just put it on OneDrive and add access). Access was perfect for that kind of configuration for a small office that you could customize a small database without being a DBA. I use it for a few hobby things and it's fun. Drag and drop a few things in a form, add a couple fields and you're good to go! Sure beats having to write SQL by hand and a few hundred lines of Python to interface with it; and that's before you write the UI for it. I wish MS would spend a little bit of that R&D budget to improve on it some more, and expand its capability. But that'd cannibalize their other products, likely. It's too niche nowadays.

by bena 4y ago

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?
- namaria 4y ago
  "Why don't everyone drive the same car as me? Dress the same as me? Read the same books, watch the same series, talk to the same people? It's clearly working great for me! Buncha rubes!"
bena 4y ago
If you're ok with your data being duplicated in multiple files, you're ok with Excel. If you want your data centralized, with the application being a portal to that data, you use a database with a frontend built in your choice of language.

deafpolygon 4y ago

If you have a spreadsheet on a share that you'd like multiple people to have concurrent access to, Excel is not the way to go (until now; nowadays you can just put it on OneDrive and add access). Access was perfect for that kind of configuration for a small office that you could customize a small database without being a DBA. I use it for a few hobby things and it's fun. Drag and drop a few things in a form, add a couple fields and you're good to go! Sure beats having to write SQL by hand and a few hundred lines of Python to interface with it; and that's before you write the UI for it. I wish MS would spend a little bit of that R&D budget to improve on it some more, and expand its capability. But that'd cannibalize their other products, likely. It's too niche nowadays.