The future for us developers !!!!

[UKDEV]

Apologies if this has been discussed before… but think I’m at a crossroads… maybe as other access developers have been over the past year or 2…. What route do we take ?

Been designing and building db apps for over 20 years, for the past 12 years been running my own development business, am now contracting and being asked to come up with a future strategy for current client.My preference for many, many years has been using ADP projects and SQL back ends using ADO, and now thinking that maybe I’ve got to change…. (un-willingly I might add !!!) As a lightweight RAD tool I really can’t think of anything I could have used over the years that would’ve given me and my clients the flexibility that we’ve had. For years I’ve used access as an exceptional front end development product to SQL Server. So…. Where do we go…. I can’t find anything that ‘officially’ states ADP’s will be no more, but ‘rumour’ seems to be pointing this way….. the internet consensus seems to be .accdb and ODBC linked tables using DAO…. Not sure, is this a step back ? discussion point maybe

(.....probably should make clear.... I use stored procedures for everything !!! select,insert, update, delete, everything data related is via stored procedures, so in my eyes using the ADP/ADE for what it was possibly intended for, everything unbound, leightweight, a fantastic RAD development tool for SQL server..... was specifically asked by a client years ago to execute all data manipulation via SP's, since then have always developed that way..... )

Client’s moving to sharepoint, so I can see all them corporate ‘user’ created desktop data solutions will probably end up in sharepoint if no processing/complicated sturcture is required, (we’re talking 1000’s) whether this be via Access Services or sharepoint designer is yet to be seen (or even lightswitch apps could be a possibility outside sharepoint). But what about the larger desktop/team/ business apps that require a lot more processing & coding, that have larger relational models, more business critical, where the full benefits of the back end are required…. What direction do we take or advise from a desktop product/RAD strategy without going .NET route….

Personally… SQL backends with sharepoint consumed ‘intranet/internet’ interfaces and ADP interfaces would be perfect !!!! What’s peoples thought’s ? (thanks for taking the time to read & reply)

 

[UKDEV]

Anyone got any views or ideas or discussion points ?

Thanks in advance,

 

[Lightwave]

I'm not an out and out developer and over the last five years I have been increasingly designing "applications" which I consider half way competent for the tasks they are asked to perform. My answer to your question is therefore only a serious of linked throughts and observations rather than a specific prediction.

Recently I have been listening to a lot of software podcasts mainly the following three.
Software Engineering Radio
Channel 9 (the MS dedicated podcast)
Deep Fried Bytes

It appears to me that Microsoft at the moment is more of a collection of talented groups than a company with a clear vision. Each group is attempting to follow there own pet technology and the company as a wholes seems to be willing to take up new technologies and drop others mainly dictated by sucess. The open source community similarly seems to pick up and move between technologies rapidly.

Unfortunately everytime a new technology is invented the first applications to be made need to be repeats of those applications created in previous platforms.

I get the opinion that this is proving somewhat counterproductive. The theory behind most applications (particularly enterprise applications) seems to me to be really quite simple. Some procedures have not changed fundamentally in centuries and yet there is still loads and loads of work for programmers designing systems that should be fairly standard.

Why is this???

My feeling - while the theory is not changing the platforms continually change.

I feel that the industry as a whole still has a long way to go before they can present a unified development environment that can allow them to develop simple applications. Programs like Access and Filemaker Pro are arguably the closest that technology companies have come to this. We need this kind of unity over the web in one package.

As it stands there are plenty of people with vision in the industry and quite a few people with power but it seems no one with vision and power.

At some point in the future someone will make this unified environment and have the power to get some kind of widescale acceptance of it. I think the popularity of access and filemaker pro shows that there is a real need for it.

Until that time we are going to be stuck with the bunker mentality of having designers / programmers / graphic artists / dbas

My thoughts

 

[Galaxiom]

Seems to me that web based applications with database server backends are becoming the norm, like it or not. That has advantages and disadvantages.

Microsoft is even talking of a future where forms are designed around HTML with CSS based formatting and Javascript logic.

Diversity of skills is essential. Learn VB.NET, Javascript, CSS and C#.

Like learning any languages it gets easier as the number of languages increases. The principles of programming logic are actually very few. Just the syntax changes and the more languages you know the more you will see the same structures and even syntaxes repeated.

 

[Fifty2One]

If you are not programming for a single company or client then you will probably need to focus on cloud type web based front end-back end applications.
We are doing a lot with QR codes rather then the single dimentional bar codes, both internally and externally for clients.
Also get a handle on some graphic design, a slick screen now will be more marketable then light gray raised buttons on a medium grey background no matter how much functionality is put behind the buttons action.