• GoofyGuy (7/17/2014)... In my experience, the shadow IT groups got started the moment someone outside IT bought a copy of Access.

    The problem I have with Access isn't Access itself, but the way in which non-IT types use it building their own data stores and 'apps': without any knowledge of good IT practises, nor IT oversight.

    For me, it wasn't that someone outside IT bought a copy, but that they were given a copy BY IT with their Office Pro install! When I rule the world, Access can be installed on any user's computer, but there will be no icons or links in the Start menu. Hopefully if they're smart enough to find it unaided, they're smart enough to read a good book before digging in to it.

    I developed in Access 1.0, preceded by (not in order): dBase III then III+, Foxbase, rBase 4000 & 5000, Wang Pace (mid/late '80s, AWESOME relational enforcement and data dictionary!), and DataFlex. I did some amazing multiuser stuff in Foxbase with menus that emulated 1-2-3 with full auditing. When Access came out I was working for a police department, my other tool was Dataflex, and boy did that suck. 1.0 wasn't very reliable, but it was followed quickly by 1.1 and we were getting Win NT 3.1 at that point and that fixed the reliability problem.

    I did some amazing things with Access over the years. In the early ‘90s I created a sneakernet replication system for an investigative unit where the detectives were in an isolated building and not online, I made a web page generator that programmed the navigation buttons for a site, did an applicant tracker for our employment services unit: tracking a cop's application had a lot of moving pieces. That ran pretty well because the database was split and each user had their own copy of the forms/reporting MDB. Now I'm doing an Access front end to bang against SQL Server 2014 on a hosted server. The users will connect via VPN and each user will have a new copy of the front end MDB (yes, it's now an ACCDB extension or something, whatever) put on their desktop every time they sign on. And if I run in to problems, then I guess I'll be rewriting those forms in C# or VB and starting up Report Services.

    My problem with Access, aside from the never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed ribbon bar, was people using it without knowing what they're doing, a very common theme in the comments here. One of the worst abominations that I encountered was a metal theft logging database created by that unit. Massive purple and green buttons, buttons that were actually labels, the things that looked like labels were actually buttons, etc. That thing would drive you blind. And then there was the time that I was asked to fix a report at juvenile corrections. Their database, made by a contractor, at least was properly split. But it had juvenile criminal and medical information, SSNs, DOBs, and no security or access or change auditing. No relational integrity. Needless to say it wasn't normalized. My boss flipped when I told him about the liability time bomb that we had lurking over there.

    I think Access is a fantastic system when used properly with a proper respect for its limitations, which most people here know and respect. When those limitations are or will be exceeded, we know what to do. And if Microsoft would get off their butts and port it to OS-X, I would kiss their hand and buy stock. They can produce ODBC drivers for Linux, but not a Mac version of Access when they have the trifecta of winning Office apps? Jerks.

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]