Question Why do people hate Access so much?

[evanscamman]

I recently ran across a web site for a software package that proclaimed:

"While Access is great if you want to organize your baseball card collection, everybody knows that if you want to get anything done you have to look elsewhere."

Do all the Access haters have a point? It seems to me that the app I'm building will do more than baseball cards, but perhaps I've been hoodwinked.
Would anyone care to elaborate on what other people perceive the limitations of Access to be in comparison with other databases?

Thank you,
Evan

 

[Banana]

How sad.

Unfortunately, that question has been asked before. Here's two good threads:

10+ reasons why IT pros hate Microsoft Access (but really shouldn’t)
Why do IT guys hate Access?


The gist is that Access get blamed for shoddy products that were made by nonprogrammers/nondevelopers/nonDBA out of necessity. I think the article at FMS Inc also was insightful in explaining the evolution. How database evolves from a desktop to clustered servers. Thus, IT people are conditioned to hate Access because it's a tool that's been used wrong too many times and only IT people has the skill and knowledge to do it right.

... except they weren't there when it was needed. Which is how some workers decided they'd strike out on their own with Access and it became mission critical.

Of course there are variants, but that's the most generic cause why IT people would soon blame Access than themselves.

 

[pbaldy]

You may get a better answer by asking the haters why they hate. I can assure you that Access is capable of very complex, professional applications. Here are some examples:

http://accesstips.datamanagementsolutions.biz/apps.htm

 

[Banana]

Steve Schapel has a great thing going on there. Excellent link, pbaldy.

 

[wazz]

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=386
http://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftAccess/Strategy/index.asp

 

[wazz]

i see banana beat me with the links...

 

[gemma-the-husky]

A lot of people don't

Show a line manager a good access app, and he will only see the benefits, I think.

---------
I think a lot of the resistance comes from organisations with entrenched IT depts, who need all their work signed off in troplicate, and in blood to justify their existence

 

[Simon_MT]

Really the question is about enpowerment and with an estimated 2 millions. we are not alone!

My only gripe is it still not available on the MAC.

Simon

 

[Banana]

It would be great to have it on Mac, but I think the trouble has to do with the fact that several components that Access use is Windows only (e.g. Jet, VBA) and they make assumptions that they are working in Windows.

Until then, I'll be working away in VMWare, which does the job nicely.

 

[Mike375]

What is Filemaker like?

 

[Banana]

I'd put this way:

If I could hack FileMaker's UI and put it over Access, I would totally go for it.

But for extension, VBA is the dealbreaker. While FileMaker can be extended, they are usually done in form of plugins and you have to buy it- there's no scripting per se, beyond the set of macros they provide you with.

So for those who want a simple database that doesn't require any business logic, FM is quite adequate for the job.