Access - Devastation (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter NauticalGent
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I know what they are. I've spent more than half of my life on web languages, building shopping sites.
It's you who are asking us to assemble them for an Access equivalent. I just wanted to tell they will never have the possibilities Access gives you.
isladogs
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Steve R.
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Respectfully disagree.
@Ari with all respects, you can't come to a conclusion with those numbers.
1- You can't give a statistical conclusion with only 2 or 3 thousands members of only one site. You need more sample data to give a statistical result.
2- When you get old, you get retired and you have plenty free time in your hand. After you do all you have to do, there's still a lot of remaining time. What you do? Join different on line communities. It's not only Access communities with high count of older average members. In my profession, most of the sites I visit have the same result. Most members are over 65. Does it mean young generation stay away from manufacturing design engineering? I'm employed in a company with less than 200 employee and 5 designers. The only over 55 years old is me, the other 4 are under 35. And none of them use on line forums.
They learn quickly and simply prefer to put their free time on social media, rather than joining a forum.
My 2 ¢
1- You can't give a statistical conclusion with only 2 or 3 thousands members of only one site. You need more sample data to give a statistical result.
2- When you get old, you get retired and you have plenty free time in your hand. After you do all you have to do, there's still a lot of remaining time. What you do? Join different on line communities. It's not only Access communities with high count of older average members. In my profession, most of the sites I visit have the same result. Most members are over 65. Does it mean young generation stay away from manufacturing design engineering? I'm employed in a company with less than 200 employee and 5 designers. The only over 55 years old is me, the other 4 are under 35. And none of them use on line forums.
They learn quickly and simply prefer to put their free time on social media, rather than joining a forum.
My 2 ¢
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isladogs
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New article by Michael Aldridge:
techcommunity.microsoft.com
Communication from the Access team is definitely improving even if its being forced on them by the endless series of bugs we now see each month. Perhaps a stronger word than 'unfortunate' would have been better!
Access Fix Now Available for VBA Security Patch Issue
Access Fix Now Available for VBA Security Patch Issue
techcommunity.microsoft.com
Communication from the Access team is definitely improving even if its being forced on them by the endless series of bugs we now see each month. Perhaps a stronger word than 'unfortunate' would have been better!
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List of synonyms of unfortunate. Any of which may have better described what many businesses and IT support felt on startup after the update.
Unfortunate
meaning:
bringing about ruin or misfortune
sample usage:
an unfortunate chain of events destroyed the business
Synonyms for unfortunate
calamitous, cataclysmal (or cataclysmic), catastrophic, damning, destructive, disastrous, fatal, fateful, ruinous
Words Related to unfortunate
apocalyptic (also apocalyptical)
hapless, ill-fated, ill-starred, luckless
adverse, baleful, baneful, damaging, deleterious, detrimental, evil, harmful, hurtful, ill, injurious, noxious, pernicious, prejudicial
Unfortunate
meaning:
bringing about ruin or misfortune
sample usage:
an unfortunate chain of events destroyed the business
Synonyms for unfortunate
calamitous, cataclysmal (or cataclysmic), catastrophic, damning, destructive, disastrous, fatal, fateful, ruinous
Words Related to unfortunate
apocalyptic (also apocalyptical)
hapless, ill-fated, ill-starred, luckless
adverse, baleful, baneful, damaging, deleterious, detrimental, evil, harmful, hurtful, ill, injurious, noxious, pernicious, prejudicial
canyonraven
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I work in large organization where data is handled in small teams. There is definitely an age cohort associated with Access with most of the VBA developers being 50 and older. The younger developers continue to use SQL and relational databases but there is a trend towards Python and R and automation of data capture with off-the-shelf data loggers. Personally I don't have any problem with this. MS Access has been incredibly useful and, when I started developing it was just a question of which OOP language you were going to use. This technology is still very useful, but it's clear that eventually there will be a scarcity of developers to support it.
canyonraven
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By "eventually", I mean a decade or so. It's still a very, very long time as a software product.
canyonraven
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I certainly didn't mean to imply that MS Access doesn't use SQL.
canyonraven
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VBA is not a big draw to new coders because Microsoft is not investing in it.
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This reminds me of the path of my career. Bear with me while I go philosophical for a moment.
Back in the 1970s, I specialized in Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) machines. My two strongest platforms were the PDP-11 (16-bit micro) and VAX 11/780 (32-bit super-mini with 64-bit data ability). I started with a DEC reseller and OEM because we made our own telemetry cards for a set of industrial products with a centralized control computer.
I was a device-driver specialist then. Time passed and I got the Navy contractor job on two hulking VAXen with 4-digit model numbers. They cranked at blazing speed. Then the CISC market faded in deference to RISC machines - but VMS was ported to the COMPAQ 64-bit Alphas because DEC got bought out by COMPAQ. Again, time passed and HP bought out COMPAQ but they ported VMS to various 64-bit machines including one IBM chip and some Intel chips, both brands using the "Longhorn" series, the IA64 chips - which were absolute beasts. Gotta say that with an 8-processor Itanium, I NEVER experienced an execution backlog. But by then, monster centralized mainframes were losing popularity to web-based databases. My monster Itaniums were eventually retired - and I retired before they did. But it was a good ride while it lasted. Oh, there are still many OpenVMS sites around the world. I hear they were really popular in the Netherlands. But their use in the USA started to fade.
This parallels the directions I have seen for Access. Don't get me wrong, I think Access was and still is a great tool with a lot of capability. But newer and more modern tools will eventually take over. Access hasn't faded yet and probably won't - because as noted, it has no current equal for in-house small DBs (using JET/ACE backends) or larger DBs (using active SQL backends). Access is doomed to fade as economic forces bring about newer and far better tools with real web abilities. The fact that right now you would have to cobble together a lot of disparate parts, as noted by Steve R., just means that there is a demand - and where there is a demand, some entrepreneur will eventually offer a product. Eventually, Access will fade into a state of relative obscurity, never really going away - but it will lose market share. As Chaucer once said (brought to modern idiom) "All things must end." (Comes from his poem “Troilus and Criseyde”.)
Take a look at languages like ALGOL and FORTRAN, which have been supplanted by more "procedurally oriented" languages such as PASCAL, ADA, PL/1, C variants, and we can't forget COBOL. None of the languages have gone away. They just aren't that commonly used any more. I mourn their fateful progression into history and celebrate them for the proud attempt they were to finally come up with the "perfect" programming language. Each one close, none of them actually on target. Their foibles and failures HAVE to exist if you believe in Goedel's Completeness Theorem - that no language can be both complete and correct at the same time.
So each generation looks for a different facet of perfection as THEY see it. But I'm like the old guy on the street corner contentedly strumming a single chord on the guitar. People come up to me and say, "Hey, there, buddy. Everybody else changes chords now and then. Why don't you?" To which I answer, "They are lookin' for the right chord. I've found it."
Back in the 1970s, I specialized in Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) machines. My two strongest platforms were the PDP-11 (16-bit micro) and VAX 11/780 (32-bit super-mini with 64-bit data ability). I started with a DEC reseller and OEM because we made our own telemetry cards for a set of industrial products with a centralized control computer.
I was a device-driver specialist then. Time passed and I got the Navy contractor job on two hulking VAXen with 4-digit model numbers. They cranked at blazing speed. Then the CISC market faded in deference to RISC machines - but VMS was ported to the COMPAQ 64-bit Alphas because DEC got bought out by COMPAQ. Again, time passed and HP bought out COMPAQ but they ported VMS to various 64-bit machines including one IBM chip and some Intel chips, both brands using the "Longhorn" series, the IA64 chips - which were absolute beasts. Gotta say that with an 8-processor Itanium, I NEVER experienced an execution backlog. But by then, monster centralized mainframes were losing popularity to web-based databases. My monster Itaniums were eventually retired - and I retired before they did. But it was a good ride while it lasted. Oh, there are still many OpenVMS sites around the world. I hear they were really popular in the Netherlands. But their use in the USA started to fade.
This parallels the directions I have seen for Access. Don't get me wrong, I think Access was and still is a great tool with a lot of capability. But newer and more modern tools will eventually take over. Access hasn't faded yet and probably won't - because as noted, it has no current equal for in-house small DBs (using JET/ACE backends) or larger DBs (using active SQL backends). Access is doomed to fade as economic forces bring about newer and far better tools with real web abilities. The fact that right now you would have to cobble together a lot of disparate parts, as noted by Steve R., just means that there is a demand - and where there is a demand, some entrepreneur will eventually offer a product. Eventually, Access will fade into a state of relative obscurity, never really going away - but it will lose market share. As Chaucer once said (brought to modern idiom) "All things must end." (Comes from his poem “Troilus and Criseyde”.)
Take a look at languages like ALGOL and FORTRAN, which have been supplanted by more "procedurally oriented" languages such as PASCAL, ADA, PL/1, C variants, and we can't forget COBOL. None of the languages have gone away. They just aren't that commonly used any more. I mourn their fateful progression into history and celebrate them for the proud attempt they were to finally come up with the "perfect" programming language. Each one close, none of them actually on target. Their foibles and failures HAVE to exist if you believe in Goedel's Completeness Theorem - that no language can be both complete and correct at the same time.
So each generation looks for a different facet of perfection as THEY see it. But I'm like the old guy on the street corner contentedly strumming a single chord on the guitar. People come up to me and say, "Hey, there, buddy. Everybody else changes chords now and then. Why don't you?" To which I answer, "They are lookin' for the right chord. I've found it."
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It seems to me that the future of Access is ....Excel. which is a sad state of affairs.
Cotswold
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Microsoft's Options
1. Abandon Access and the millions of users. (as they did with Foxpro)
2. Continue with Access development and support
3. Create a new system that Access users will happily convert to
4. Create a poor system that Microsoft demand we convert to resulting in decline
If (1) is chosen, you can be possibly use Access for up to 15 years or so before a replacement is necessary. So plenty of time to find out just who will pay for the switch (probably) away from Microsoft.
My opinion is it will be (2) for the foreseeable, (3) improbable and (4) most likely on previous form
1. Abandon Access and the millions of users. (as they did with Foxpro)
2. Continue with Access development and support
3. Create a new system that Access users will happily convert to
4. Create a poor system that Microsoft demand we convert to resulting in decline
If (1) is chosen, you can be possibly use Access for up to 15 years or so before a replacement is necessary. So plenty of time to find out just who will pay for the switch (probably) away from Microsoft.
My opinion is it will be (2) for the foreseeable, (3) improbable and (4) most likely on previous form
canyonraven
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Please forgive me if I gave the wrong impression earlier, I really do enjoy Access, SQL and VBA. Like the Doc Man's career path, I started with Honeywell mainframes and VAX minis with Fortran, then C/C++ on Sun UNIX boxes, early Mac's with Pascal, a few years integrating Oracle dbs with GIS, then Java and VBA in academia then state and federal government.
I stuck with VBA, SQL and MS Access mostly, I guess, because it put food on the table for 20 yrs. It's been one hell of a useful product and is still very much in demand by my users. And I intend to retire someday, still coding in VBA.
But I get asked by straight-out-college young data analysts about what tools they should consider. And I do in fact recommend Python, SQL products that play well with the cloud (e.g., Azure SQL, MySQL and PostgreSQL), and R if they are into statistics. If they are planning to migrate Access databases to the cloud, (and there will be plenty of opportunity for that), then yes, they better learn Access and VBA as well.
I stuck with VBA, SQL and MS Access mostly, I guess, because it put food on the table for 20 yrs. It's been one hell of a useful product and is still very much in demand by my users. And I intend to retire someday, still coding in VBA.
But I get asked by straight-out-college young data analysts about what tools they should consider. And I do in fact recommend Python, SQL products that play well with the cloud (e.g., Azure SQL, MySQL and PostgreSQL), and R if they are into statistics. If they are planning to migrate Access databases to the cloud, (and there will be plenty of opportunity for that), then yes, they better learn Access and VBA as well.
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