July 25, 2014 at 8:02 am
Gary Varga (7/21/2014)
Access 1.0 was truly unstable but 1.1 resolved that. It is good for what it is intended and, like many things, is maligned for the results of inappropriate use.Personally, I'd much rather upscale a solution based on Access than one based in Excel.
Access 1.0, yes I remember it well. So shaky that adding an index often slowed down selects. Rumour had it the main reason MS bought Fox was for it's excellent indexing tech which was rolled into Access
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
July 25, 2014 at 8:48 am
andrew gothard (7/25/2014)
Access 1.0, yes I remember it well. So shaky that adding an index often slowed down selects. Rumour had it the main reason MS bought Fox was for it's excellent indexing tech which was rolled into Access
Not rumour! Microsoft did, indeed, buy FoxPro for the Rushmore indexing technology.
July 25, 2014 at 9:56 am
Hi sqlvogel,
I don't agree that Access can't be used to learn "principles of normalization". I'll agree that Access shouldn't be used to learn about SQL Server or perhaps some specific textbook notation of database design in academia. But out here in the real world, Access is great for learning database design principles like normalization, naming standards, referential integrity, etc.
For ease of use by a learner, Access can't be beat. It comes with most versions of Office. No server needed, just fire it up and start designing.
I totally disagree that Access doesn't provide an ERD. Of course it does. There are many methods of notation out there, and Access provides a perfectly fine version. At a glance one can see the tables, fields, relationships (PK and FK), relationship type (1:1 or 1:M), referential integrity, etc.
Access SQL doesn't provide everything in the SQL language, but it certainly provides enough to learn the principles of querying, including inner and outer joins, subqueries, aggregates, action queries, cartesian products, unions, unequal joins, etc.
I think you're quibbling over cosmetic differences and a small fraction of SQL syntax that Access doesn't support.
Cheers,
Armen
July 25, 2014 at 10:07 am
ArmenStein wrote:
I think you're quibbling over cosmetic differences and a small fraction of SQL syntax that Access doesn't support.
I agree.
Access provides plenty of other things worth quibbling about.
July 25, 2014 at 10:11 am
GoofyGuy (7/25/2014)
I agree.
Access provides plenty of other things worth quibbling about.
Uh, thank you?
🙂
Armen
July 25, 2014 at 10:23 am
People complaining that MS Access is not completely standards compliant? Does not the same follow for SQL Server?
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
July 25, 2014 at 11:50 am
sqlvogel (7/25/2014)
I think students new to databases would be well advised to stay away from Access until they know what they are doing. It ought to be considered an advanced tool for developers and not any kind of platform for beginners to learn about databases.
I vigorously disagree with you. I 'grew up' in access, and I did it while working with it at a company, under mentors. I learned normalization, data modeling, and all the basics using a book and the software. As things I wanted to do outgrew the interface, I got into directly adjusting the SQL under the views. It took only a few weeks to be productive with it and only a few months to be reasonable with it. Admittedly I came in with a strong VBA background.
Those UI elements that you say hide things are good things. It lets the newbie concentrate on the things they're needing to learn, like normalization, and not worry about things, like 400 table ERDs (which, btw, Visio can deal with using the right add ins).
After 2 and a half years supporting and coding in MS Access, I stepped up to SQL Server well grounded in the needs of RDMS design. Now, did I butt my head against using all T-SQL, all the time? Well, of course. Nature of the beast.
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July 29, 2014 at 4:36 am
I miss the advanced query designer of Access in SharePoint reportbuilder, where you can actually modify sql text and verify it graphically; instead of "oops, you modified the sql-statement, no graphical representation for you'.
That and the ease of linking datasources together
March 10, 2015 at 5:35 pm
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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