Vb V Access

[swanny]

Hi All

Im new to this database stuff and am wondering wether access 2007 is better to write a database or access data with vb front end....is there any advantages/disadvantages?

or am i barking up the wrong tree!

 

[KeithG]

Is your back end Access or a different RDBMS? It you BE is Access I would stick with Access.

 

[tehNellie]

While you can certainly use VB to write a front end for Access I'd question the reasoning behind it. Access technically is (or was, I've not looked at 2007 in detail yet) the "front end" to the database engine anyway and you've got a lot of the building blocks required to produce forms, reports and suchlike already included within the application.

If you're building a concept database to get budget/funding to go to a full scale enterprise solution using something like SQL server and want a VB front end pre-developed that can migrate relatively quickly to the new DB solution I could see a point to it but if it's a solution designed in Access and using Access after that I think ditching it to use VB as the front end is simply re-inventing the wheel for the sake of it.

 

[boblarson]

I would almost rather, if I was going to build a FE/BE solution in VB, go with SQL Server 2005 Express instead as the backend, as it would be possible for your customers to move to SQL Server, the full edition, much easier than if you limited them to Access. But, if it is a small program that isn't going to need much in the way of data, but has some, then you might be okay with the VB front-end/Access back-end. But, for rapid development and use, and for small to medium sized data applications, Access is still a great tool. Even using Access as a front-end to a SQL Server back-end is a great tool to use since, as tehNellie has mentioned, Access does a LOT of the work for you, which to do in VB will take a LOT of coding.