the NZ() function

[The_Doc_Man]

Good point, G. VBA does automatic promotion / casting within the expression to the right hand side of an equals-sign. Which is why it is possible to write "DATE() + 3" and treat the result as a date.

For novice readers: The "3" gets promoted to match DATE(), which is a "higher" data type in the hierarchy of promotion.

 

[Mark_]

I have read many experts say that lookup fields create problems and they stress not to use them. As far as wizards are concerned, I don't believe the web languages have these kinds of things, do they? If they do, I've never used one.

If you create a combo to do a "Lookup" on a form to return either a value or a reference to that value, you run into no problems.

If you tell ACCESS that you are doing a lookup in a table, then ACCESS will return the value or the value associated with a reference WITHOUT telling you which is being returned. Means when you are reviewing your data in a table and you see "Red" in a field that is a "Lookup", you are not sure if the actual value saved is "Red", is a pointer to the first instance of "Red" in a looked up table, or a different pointer to another instance of "Red" in a looked up table. Makes it much more difficult to debug issues when you have issues with data.

On the down side, for ACCESS, it has features that I personally don't think add value for end users. On the plus, it is far better than dealing with something like .PHP, C, or VB for rapid application development. Not as handy as Clarion, but a pretty decent environment once you get use to it.

 

[vba_php]

On the plus, it is far better than dealing with something like .PHP, C, or VB.

are you serious!? I've had so many unexplained issue come up by using Access over the years that if I didn't have to use the damn thing, I would drop it in a second! I'm in love with PHP and I've used it extensively. It's got an insane amount of good resources built into it just like Python does. The syntax may be a little difficult to learn at first, but to me it's just as good as any other back end OOP language on the internet.I would say the only issue I have with it is the fact that the error messages it throws are sometimes unclear so it sometimes takes a while to find an error. The other thing that happens quite often is....if there is a small typo in a script somewhere, it is not uncommon for PHP to not throw any error but also not return anything from the scripts desired outcome. I've had that happen many times, with huge scripts all the way down to small built-in functions. That's why IDEs like Eclipse and Dreamweaver are so good. They identify logic errors and typos as ur writing the code.

 

[Mark_]

are you serious!? I've had so many unexplained issue come up by using Access over the years that if I didn't have to use the damn thing, I would drop it in a second! I'm in love with PHP and I've used it extensively. It's got an insane amount of good resources built into it just like Python does. The syntax may be a little difficult to learn at first, but to me it's just as good as any other back end OOP language on the internet.I would say the only issue I have with it is the fact that the error messages it throws are sometimes unclear so it sometimes takes a while to find an error. The other thing that happens quite often is....if there is a small typo in a script somewhere, it is not uncommon for PHP to not throw any error but also not return anything from the scripts desired outcome. I've had that happen many times, with huge scripts all the way down to small built-in functions. That's why IDEs like Eclipse and Dreamweaver are so good. They identify logic errors and typos as ur writing the code.

I'm guessing you haven't had to deal with large development in professional environments then. There are much better tools out there in other languages. ACCESS is a very useful tool for smaller organizations and can be very useful in larger organizations for specific tasks. Were I in a spot to, I'd go back to Clarion in a heartbeat though. It isn't as well known in many circles, but those who use it always get a chuckle from posts like yours.

I've been on small teams that did in a couple months projects large teams failed to accomplish after working for a couple years. I did switch careers around the same time Clarion started supporting web enabled apps though. Flip a switch, recompile, and your desktop program was converted to a web application. Very fun to develop in, too much in fact. I decided I needed to focus on other things at the time.

I had taken a look at dreamweaver, but I found it less useful than ACCESS as a development environment.

 

[vba_php]

I'm guessing you haven't had to deal with large development in professional environments then. There are much better tools out there in other languages. ACCESS is a very useful tool for smaller organizations and can be very useful in larger organizations for specific tasks

I worked for Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, IA and we had a VB6 app that used nothing but access databases. the app was about 500,000 lines of code, so I'd say yes to the question of whether or not I've worked with large scale access apps.

I had taken a look at dreamweaver, but I found it less useful than ACCESS as a development environment.

Dreamweaver is not meant to develop databases. you can write all kinds of languages in it, like php, html, css, asp, javascript, jquery, xml, json, etc.... you just have to include the correct file extensions.

 

[Mark_]

lines of code <> scale of app. You can write hundreds of thousands of lines of code to produce a very poor application, all by yourself.

I'm thinking more "Applications used by multi-national companies in over a hundred countries" would justify "Large scale". Doesn't mean the app itself needs to be cumbersome either. One of the fun ones was a system for BWIP that was used world wide.

When I was looking at Dreamweaver it wasn't to develop a database. It was for an eCommerce site. At least I was able to fix the messed up PERL some other developer had provided...

 

[vba_php]

if ur working on projects that are gonna be run in over a hundred countries and ur not completely stressed out all the time, I will kiss ur ass. that's got to be a large amount of people ur working with, and ur prolly making a shitload of money as well. if i was writing an e-commerce site, i don't think i would use access for anything. what would be the purpose? everything is stored in a server db anyway.



our app at RC *was* poorly designed. it was freakin horrid. but that's exactly what happens when u have to comply with government regulations that constantly change and u have to run tests that have requirements which are never clearly defined.

 

[Mark_]

For the eCommerce site I did wind up using Clarion. Script on server calls executable with form's passed data. executable updated db and/or generated custom return pages for end users. Was fun, but that was also a long time ago. Hated the clients (kind of people who got upset when an image didn't display on their monitor in the same shade of purple as the object in their hand) but system was interesting. Stuck to Clarion as I'd already developed the CC clearing portion and could talk to any clearing house they wanted to go with. Got out of that before the "step 3 - PROFITS" because I wanted to actually have a life.