3 ms·

At least they weren't using Access.

by nunez 3y ago

bonki 3y ago
I've been wondering for 25 years if there has ever been a legitimate use case for this abomination.
- defrost 3y ago
  Trojan gift horse for undermining the competition .. once they're hip deep and headed deeper into Access dependancy you're free to play the field without concern of them catching up.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Optimal_Persona 3y ago
  In 20 years I've encountered precisely one Access Database that was very well designed, adequately documented, and implemented correctly - meaning people used a single instance on a specific machine, or Remote Desktop Protocol'd into same. Connecting to an Access database over a network from individual client apps is a recipe for pain as the database file gets locked, so then people start saving "copy of copy of copy USE THIS ONE" versions and you get divergent database backends with no clean way to merge. IME this always happens for business critical Access systems with no backup and documentation at the least convenient time, and suddenly it's IT's problem/fault. Yes you can connect to a SQL Server backend, but then it's IT's problem/fault/responsibility to maintain, and it takes Access out of the "simple enough for business users" domain. That said, as a rapid app development desktop tool Access can work very well if you know its limitations. It's somewhat surprising MS never made a 365 web-first equivalent, but that's probably because they'd rather charge for Dynamics 365 licenses and Azure SQL hosting.
Clubber 3y ago
Access is great for small companies if it's schema'd properly. The problem is when those small companies outgrow it; it's a complete rewrite. I believe you can point it to a MSSQL backend, but it's been a couple decades since I've used it. It's certainly a step up from Excel.
- noSyncCloud 3y ago
  You're not wrong... I used it for some small business things before I started programming. But why does MS have to treat so disrespectfully? Like they didn't even have time to give the SQL editor a monospace font, wtf?
  - Clubber 3y ago
    I dunno. They haven't given much love to SSRS in quite a while either.
p_plno 3y ago
I'm not saying I work for a company that does, I'm just asking for a friend. Can you recommend any actual, better alternatives?
- sngz 3y ago
  Sqllite
  - p_plno 3y ago
    With what GUI? It needs to be usable for people considering Excel is a challenge. Honest question.
    - namaria 3y ago
      I know of no easier way to quickly release a very usable gui on top of a standard relational database then Elixir/Phoenix.
    - everforward 3y ago
      DBeaver has an Excel-ish interface for SQL. The usual rows and columns layout, you can double click a cell to edit it. You do have to Save to flush the changes to the DB though, and the errors when queries are wrong or whatever are hard to read. Your users will likely be totally unable to grok the errors. I work in IT and it's somewhat difficult for me because of the chain of error handlers (SQL -> Java error type -> Java error -> display to user; there's a lot of Java stuff mixed into your SQL errors).

At least they weren't using Access.

by nunez 3y ago

At least they weren't using Access.

bonki 3y ago

I've been wondering for 25 years if there has ever been a legitimate use case for this abomination.

defrost 3y ago
Trojan gift horse for undermining the competition .. once they're hip deep and headed deeper into Access dependancy you're free to play the field without concern of them catching up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Optimal_Persona 3y ago
In 20 years I've encountered precisely one Access Database that was very well designed, adequately documented, and implemented correctly - meaning people used a single instance on a specific machine, or Remote Desktop Protocol'd into same. Connecting to an Access database over a network from individual client apps is a recipe for pain as the database file gets locked, so then people start saving "copy of copy of copy USE THIS ONE" versions and you get divergent database backends with no clean way to merge. IME this always happens for business critical Access systems with no backup and documentation at the least convenient time, and suddenly it's IT's problem/fault. Yes you can connect to a SQL Server backend, but then it's IT's problem/fault/responsibility to maintain, and it takes Access out of the "simple enough for business users" domain. That said, as a rapid app development desktop tool Access can work very well if you know its limitations. It's somewhat surprising MS never made a 365 web-first equivalent, but that's probably because they'd rather charge for Dynamics 365 licenses and Azure SQL hosting.

Clubber 3y ago

Access is great for small companies if it's schema'd properly. The problem is when those small companies outgrow it; it's a complete rewrite. I believe you can point it to a MSSQL backend, but it's been a couple decades since I've used it. It's certainly a step up from Excel.

noSyncCloud 3y ago
You're not wrong... I used it for some small business things before I started programming. But why does MS have to treat so disrespectfully? Like they didn't even have time to give the SQL editor a monospace font, wtf?
- Clubber 3y ago
  I dunno. They haven't given much love to SSRS in quite a while either.

p_plno 3y ago

I'm not saying I work for a company that does, I'm just asking for a friend. Can you recommend any actual, better alternatives?

sngz 3y ago
Sqllite
- p_plno 3y ago
  With what GUI? It needs to be usable for people considering Excel is a challenge. Honest question.
  - namaria 3y ago
    I know of no easier way to quickly release a very usable gui on top of a standard relational database then Elixir/Phoenix.
  - everforward 3y ago
    DBeaver has an Excel-ish interface for SQL. The usual rows and columns layout, you can double click a cell to edit it. You do have to Save to flush the changes to the DB though, and the errors when queries are wrong or whatever are hard to read. Your users will likely be totally unable to grok the errors. I work in IT and it's somewhat difficult for me because of the chain of error handlers (SQL -> Java error type -> Java error -> display to user; there's a lot of Java stuff mixed into your SQL errors).