
Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die - 4mpm3
https://medium.com/young-coder/microsoft-access-the-zombie-database-software-that-wont-die-5b09e389c166
======
jotakami
A number of years ago I was in the Navy and worked in an electronics shop on
an aircraft carrier. We were responsible for calibrating and repairing all the
test and measurement equipment for the entire ship as well as the squadrons
that we carried with us. Easily over 10k individual pieces of equipment, each
of which had to be calibrated on a specific schedule. Most of this data was
managed centrally, and we sent/received DB updates a couple times a week.
However, just managing our workload and operations efficiently required other
data which was not part of this database. I had no choice but to build my own
solution, and the only real option was MS Access given the barren IT resources
available on a deployed aircraft carrier.

But man, was it a fucking lifesaver. Just for one example, we often had to
send equipment out to different labs since we didn’t have the capability to
test them, and shipping stuff required a standard military shipping document
with various mundane pieces of information about the stuff being sent.
Creating these documents was a tedious process of looking up the data manually
and then typing it into a Word file. I just recreated the document as an
Access form, with fields that would populate from a query. Creating the
shipping documents went from 30-45 mins to essentially the click of a single
button.

~~~
bob1029
Being able to automate forms can absolutely revolutionize some businesses.
Many business owners have no idea the extent to which automation is feasible
here. I have seen fully manual paper process (printers/scanners/pen &
ink/shredders/etc.) go into 100% digital realm and the impact it had on the
business. It really is incredible the difference it makes. The most
interesting factor was the fact that now that the inputs are captured in a
computer, we can run business rules against those inputs computationally.
I.e., prevent generation of forms you would have to otherwise manually revise
and resubmit after the fact. Then someone figured out you could start plugging
in other business systems to your rules engine and tracking state...

I think it is a fun and compelling challenge to see just how much of the
business you can put "on rails" with computers and various integrations. I
have some background in semiconductor manufacturing, and the degree of
automation I witnessed there got to me in a really deep way. Experiencing a
massive factory that can literally run for hours-to-days without a single
human inside is something else. I feel a lot of businesses can strive towards
similar goals. Being able to fully-automate manufacturing of silicon chips is
an incredibly opulent affair, but if you can simply automate a paper-bound
business process that is on a hot-path (I.e. used many times a day), it could
potentially save a struggling business.

~~~
dreamcompiler
As a counterexample it's easy to get this wrong as well. In my EMT career we
switched from doing run reports on paper to doing it on the computer. It was a
nightmare. No attention to good UI principles had been paid. In the section on
"What drugs did you administer?" we had to choose from a scrolling menu of
perhaps 100 items for _each_ drug we used (including oxygen which we used on
everybody). Simply typing in their names would have been easy, but no. Every
data element was like that. A report that took me 20 minutes on paper took 45
minutes on the web version. Classic enterprise software.

Edit: Above was an attempt at digitization while this thread is about form
automation. Understood. My point is that there was a lot of automation that
_could_ have been employed but wasn't. With that and good UI principles, the
org could have made us more efficient. They chose not to because what they
really wanted was a searchable database of patients treated so they could get
more funding. EMT productivity was never a consideration.

~~~
dragonsngoblins
I imagine this was partly an attempt at data normalization. If you'd been
allowed to type it in they would have had to worry about differences in
spelling, capitalization, etc.

I'm not saying the solution they used was a good one mind, but I bet that was
part of the motivation to implement it that way

~~~
dreamcompiler
I expect you're right, but there are better ways (e.g. autocomplete) to
achieve that.

~~~
dragonsngoblins
Oh most definitely. I didn't want to imply they went about it in an even half
reasonable way, just that the motivation of designing the interface like that
had nothing to do with optimizing for time spent filling it in

------
SigmundA
I have a special place in my heart for Access, its where I first started
making money writing software and learned SQL and VB. Its where I really felt
like I was making something that solved real world problems for people,
quickly at that.

It was actually amazing how far it could scale, you could put a shared MDB
file out on a Novell network share and have 30 concurrent users with no server
app at all, users just doubled clicked the MDB.

I still think there is a killing to made on a modern day Access "Done Right".
DB, Gui framework and printable report generator all in one sharing the same
language front to back, top to bottom.

~~~
codeulike
Salesforce, the core database/CRUD bit of it if you ignore all the stuff
they've purchased and tacked-on in the last few years, is essentially 'Access
in the cloud', in terms of the sorts of things you can do and the ease with
which you can do it, and how far you can stretch it before it starts to get
cumbersome. And yes, they are making a killing.

edit: And if that sounds easy, imagine how you would go about upgrading and
patching and extending your access-like cloud platform twice a year without
any significant breakage of any of your customers varied and extensive
customisations, and without any significant downtime, and keep that up for 20
years. Thats the thing that Salesforce are good at, and not many people
appreciate how difficult it is.

~~~
wil421
ServiceNow is a lot easier for admins/developers to use for workflow
automation. In my opinion it’s a little easier than Salesforce but it could
become bloated like Salesforce if it want already. Quickbase is another one I
worked with but I was migrating workflows off of it. Quickbase was good for
non IT people but not much better than Access or Excel.

~~~
mynegation
A lot depends on what is actually implemented on top of these systems. I
absolutely loathe servicenow because of multi page multilevel forms with
horrible, ugly, no good UX I have to deal with.

~~~
wil421
Yea not the worst UX I’ve seen but far from the best. They give you enough
rope to hang yourself and most companies do. They have a new agent workspace
to help improve usability.

I loathe Workday. Performance reviews and taking time off have unneeded steps
and comments in weird places. The flat and colorful UI looks nice but it’s
hard to find stuff.

------
phs318u
The reason that both Access and Excel use is so prevalent in corporate “shadow
IT” land is because there are many parts of the business that have problems
for which only a negative or marginal business-case can be made for IT to
solve it (given the “get out of bed” costs of most IT departments). It’s a
barrier-to-entry problem. Excel and Access are cheap enough and fly under the
corporate IT radar (no involvement needed), that these marginal problems can
be addressed in a self-serve manner.

I’ve worked in organisations that have tried to kill these tools off but
unless you can lower the cost-to-play or offer a “better” self/serve
alternative, you will fail.

~~~
radcon
I don't disagree, but isn't it a sign of much deeper issues if this "Shadow
IT" land exists at your company in the first place? Why is it that experienced
programmers can't efficiently solve a problem that a business user can handle
in Access?

Are they under-staffed? Neck-deep in spaghetti code? Lacking business
knowledge and the opportunity to acquire it? Bottle-necked by a lack of
business analysts or testers?

I hear about this too often and nobody seems to think it's a major problem. IT
departments can have a queue that's 2 years deep and people don't even bat an
eye, they just think "Oh, that's how IT works!" And that's not even taking
into account all the requests people aren't submitting because they've given
up hope of getting any dev time.

~~~
flukus
Agreed, I think it's because developers like to over engineer everything and
the managers like to over engineer the processes.

So many of these access excel solutions should be a days worth of work, simple
perl cgi scripts with a minimalist UI deployed by rsync. Instead we have to
use our super "productive" modern frameworks, split everything into a thousand
files (god forbid you embed an sql query in the only place it's called), add
unit tests, etc. There's certainly times for the later approach, but most
businesses need much more of the former.

So because developers don't have a reasonable platform to pinch off random
little projects others step in.

~~~
perl4ever
"So many of these access excel solutions should be a days worth of work"

I don't know why you think a lot of VBA would be replaced by a little perl. Of
course, my perspective has a lot to do with the fact that it was essentially
impossible to get a new perl module installed where I used to work.

But developers often don't appreciate the importance of presentation (and
other) details in reports for managers. Your reference to "a minimalist UI" is
telling.

Even though Access and Excel can be buggy, unstable, and annoying, it doesn't
make much sense to use anything else if you are automating a report that was
previously assembled by hand in Excel, and needs to match precisely.

And often IT types like to exercise power by gatekeeping - if you aren't doing
"real" programming, you don't need a Turing complete solution, so Office ends
up being the only option. I've been told that if I can select a list of
columns from a dataset, and some filters, by pointing and clicking, that's all
I, or my managers, need for reports.

Honestly, I think a lot of people find fulfillment in their work through being
the person who can say "no" to people, particularly managers that are
theoretically higher ranking. And also by expressing themselves through
creative decisions when others fail to specify details. I think that using
Office/Access/VBA may be correlated to rejecting the value system of most
developers, rather than a technical judgment.

~~~
flukus
> But developers often don't appreciate the importance of presentation (and
> other) details in reports for managers. Your reference to "a minimalist UI"
> is telling.

We're talking access here, at best it's ugly and at worst you've got a gaudy
background image(1) and a color scheme that would give the disability
compliance officer a stroke. Throwing in bootstrap or a more minimal css
framework is a huge step up in terms of presentation.

> Even though Access and Excel can be buggy, unstable, and annoying, it
> doesn't make much sense to use anything else if you are automating a report
> that was previously assembled by hand in Excel, and needs to match
> precisely.

I'm thinking of scenarios a bit more complex than that. Access apps generally
have a few data input screens, multiple users, etc. Not complicated but not as
simple as reports.

I'll admit that I do run away from anything to do with reports, but usually
that's because they've installed some "easy to use, no developers required"
reporting system that the non-developers can't use and makes life 10 times
harder for the developers. If I can just write sql to shove data into an html
table or excel template (where we can have the best of both worlds) I'm more
than happy too.

1\. I actually think of some of these old access programs when I look at
windows new built in mail app, who the hell adds a background image?

~~~
perl4ever
"We're talking access here, at best it's ugly and at worst you've got a gaudy
background image(1) and a color scheme that would give the disability
compliance officer a stroke. Throwing in bootstrap or a more minimal css
framework is a huge step up in terms of presentation."

I'm talking about creating Excel reports based on pulling stuff from (possibly
a random assortment of) databases. Where you can use any feature of Excel. Not
that the Access application is distributed to people who care what it looks
like.

It seems like you can't even imagine a complex report that isn't an
interactive application. So I think we're just talking different languages.

Honestly, I was just talking to someone in the organization I work in with the
same lack of understanding. He was like "you have a point and click interface
that lets you choose some columns from a table and some filters using simple
boolean criteria, what else could you (or your manager) want?"

I want the ability to define all the business rules to produce the formatting
and munge the data, I guess. And to structure the code in such a way that it's
flexible enough to handle major changes. I need regular expressions. I need to
run a diff algorithm on text. I need to use XML and REST to talk to
SharePoint. I need to scrape information from a system that I only have access
to through a web browser.

Basically, I'm using Access/Excel to do what I used to use Qlikview for, or
just plain Perl, and it seems to be less of an "impedance mismatch" as people
like to say. Also it doesn't cost as much as a car as Qlik licenses did.

------
mdorazio
As the author points out, Access fills an interesting niche where Excel isn't
quite enough, but a SQL database and all the stuff that goes along with it is
way too much. On top of that, it's completely local so you don't have to pay
for licenses or worry about data policies. That niche is big enough to sustain
Access pretty much indefinitely.

I think the lesson here is that business users more often than not want
something that 1) just works, 2) they can actually understand, and 3) doesn't
require learning and setting up a bunch of other stuff to maintain or upgrade.
It's easy to forget how big of a step up it is from Excel to a SQL-based
application (or similar other business needs elsewhere) and how big of a
barrier that is.

~~~
perl4ever
I'm not clear on why you are referring to Access as an alternative to a "SQL
based application".

Access's SQL dialect is extremely annoying sometimes, but using SQL is a very
significant (if not the most) reason for utilizing it rather than Excel.

I went around and around trying to find a way to query Excel "tables" with SQL
or something similar, but eventually gave up. There is something called DAX,
but it seems different just to be different, and nothing is orthogonal and
logical - particularly external data is not on an equal footing with tables
within your spreadsheet.

~~~
LegitShady
I use DAX in Power BI which I believe shares a common data model with excel.

Dax is powerful but sometimes frustrating. When you need bidirectional
relationships you end up making custom measures to keep the whole model
performant. Depending on the scale of the problem being looked at it becomes a
mess.

But Power BI is the access of dashboard world...

~~~
perl4ever
Based on my limited experience, Power Pivot has a maddening lack of smooth
integration with Excel. Power BI is a separate install, I believe, so not
currently an option.

I'm stuck with Office 2013 for the time being and can't upgrade or install
anything. If I could use anything, I'd probably prefer to go back to SSRS.
Maybe Informatica, or OBIEE or something.

I'm biased by spending so many years writing SQL, but I found it extremely
cumbersome to do basic things in DAX even after I figured out how, and haven't
seen any obvious advantages. But I do know for a fact that software newer than
2013 adds some crucial features that would make it better.

~~~
kthejoker2
DAX and SQL are qualitatively different languages. They serve different use
cases entirely.

DAX is designed solely for analytical queries using dynamic context (so you
don't have to code for every user selected filter or relationship dependency
in your model.) Its meant to be written once and then used interactively by
your users. It has tons of helper functions like time intelligence, iterators
and generators ..

SQL is obviously much broader in scope and functionality, but to match the
level of built in context driven dynamism of DAX would require a frankly
unmaintainable mess.

So yeah if you just need an answer to a single specific analytic query, just
write a SQL query.

But if you need to create a measure to show weighted average pricing for any
user selected combination of equities, time periods, markets, vendors, and 500
other dimensional attributes - and then create 5 more measures on top of that
to show year to date, year over year, performance vs. overall market,
simulated demand at a 5% decrease in price, and price excluding large
institutional purchases - DAX is your friend.

~~~
infinite8s
I wonder if this is where Looker succeeded with their modeling language
LookML.

------
amostil
I used to work as part of a "Shadow IT Group" within a fortune 50 defense
contractor. We built fairly complex solutions within MS Office because we were
denied the tools to do the job properly. The most complex program I ever wrote
in access was controlling electrical arrangements. This database was
synchronized nightly across 3 different domains and would routinely have in
excess of 50 concurrent users. I think the largest table had around 500,000
rows. The beauty of development in Office is the price tag and the time from
concept to implementation. There was very little we could not accomplish with
a combination of Access, Excel and sometimes a little wsh.

------
MarcScott
I used to teach students MS Access, as well as the entire Office Suite.

At the time I questioned the validity of teaching them to use Access, as I was
pretty sure that it was little more than a toy program, and would never be
used in the wild by proper businesses.

Then at a mate's wedding one of the guests turned out to be a database admin
at a large financial institution. I mentioned my opinions on teaching Access
to students, and how pointless it was, and he laughed at me.

His response was that he'd often be asked to build a database to do xyz by
management, and his reply would normally be something along the lines of...

"Sure, we can get a secure database, that talks to the other systems and does
everything you need, with a web interface in a week or so."

Management would give him disapproving stares.

"Or I could knock you up an Access database in a couple of hours that'll do
the job."

Management's response - "Yeah, just do that."

------
alkonaut
Is there a modern and/or open alternative to this? E.g a SQLite + electron or
local web client thing where you could build a simple inventory or similar
_but_ you should also be able to scale it to client server when the need
occurs 10 years down.

Note that any number of cloud startups don’t count as an alternative to
access. When these things start it’s as an excel sheet with data that no one
will go through the enterprise hassle to get cleared for anywhere but their
own hard drive. This needs to sit above excel but still local. You need the
entire business case and business value while it’s still in a local directory.

~~~
tracker1
I think that Open/Libre-Office have options for this. You can also use Access
as a front end for another db (odbc) backend pretty easily.

I'd probably do a web app myself, but that's just me. I know a lot of people
that cut their programming teeth on Access apps, including distributed ones.

~~~
tabtab
OO/LO "Base" is a pile crap in my opinion.

People often develop smallish CRUD apps in MS-Access in two weeks or less.
It's up and going without fuss and muss and without fiddling with servers,
containers, DBA's, etc.

You have to admire its nimbleness.

Yes, the database "crashes" fairly often, but it's easy to make frequent
round-robin-style file-based backups using Windows Scheduler and DOS scripts.

Most databases cannot be properly backed up with file-based techniques because
of syncing of internal pointers. But MS-Access's separate "lock-file" based
technique somehow facilitates file-based backups.

Such MS-Access apps are far from perfect, but if you factor in everything,
they seem to be a net benefit.

 _I 'd probably do a web app myself_

If follow-on maintainers don't know the web framework used, it can be hard to
maintain. Web apps are rarely nimble to do without an involved framework on
which the developer is familiar with. MS-Access avoids that problem with
ubiquity and a light drag-and-drop learning curve. (It did get harder to learn
when they went from coordinate-based to an HTML-esque flow engine around
2006.)

Let's face it, desktop GUI IDE's are usually much easier to learn than web
stuff. You don't have to deal with the web's lack of state, and CSS/DOM/JS
headaches/bugs/inconsistencies.

~~~
zokier
Whats wrong with Base? I haven't used it so I don't have any preconceptions
about it.

~~~
tabtab
Re: _Whats wrong with Base?_

When I first learned MS-Access, I barely had to read the manual. I could
discover most functionality by clicking around. With Base, I had to constantly
dig in the manual and _still_ couldn't get it to do many ordinary CRUD idioms.

------
kabes
I'm convinced that Access could replace 90% of the business/enterprise
software being written today in 1/3 of the time. It's especially powerful if
you use a connector to a real database and just use access for its forms and
reporting capabilities

------
tracker1
While I don't really use Access, I think there's a _LOT_ of power there, even
as a basic front end to any other ODBC capable database. And while I'd
probably reach for SQLite over Access, there's a lot there to really like.

In the end, it's relatively easy to get started with. As TFA mentions, it's
really a great option for Power users. A relatively skilled business person
can get up to speed with it quickly enough extending from Excel knowledge.

------
cyberferret
I cut my teeth on dBase II back in the day, and built my first consulting and
development company on the back of that, then moving on to Clipper, FoxPro and
Clarion and other tools over time. I always managed to skirt around Access
whenever it came up in client meetings ("Oh, we have this FREE database thingy
that came with our word processing and spreadsheet tools - why don't you use
that to write our stock control app??").

It has been many years since I have seen Access, and I thank the database gods
for that. Nowadays I run an HR SaaS company, but just yesterday we landed the
biggest contract of our fledgling company with THE biggest manufacturer in the
UK of a certain household product. All the excitement was sucked out of me
when they asked if they could integrate our cloud HR system with their
internal job costing & time sheet database... which is written in Access!

------
woliveirajr
I remember the first Access version. Wasn't cheap (for my budget at the time)
and I got it as a birthday gift. Wasn't my first contact with database (dBase
III Plus, anyone?) but came with 5 huge manuals that covered a lot of
relational databases, and was where I first heard of normalizations rules.

If it was easy for a teen in the first months with a computer, must be easy
nowadays for any non-tech person who doesn't receive enought attention from IT
because building a system would cost too much for each sprint/function
points/hours.

And it won't die unless things like that change.

~~~
GrumpyNl
I started to write with Dbase 1 and 2

~~~
steveeq1
There was no "dbase 1", it started as "dbase 2" because Ashton Tate didn't
want the product to sound premature.

~~~
teh_klev
To be fair, they probably mean dBase II and dBase III. Although they could
mean Vulcan and dBase II, which is less likely. I started my "database"
programming career on dBase II in the early 80's and never bumped into Vulcan.

~~~
tabtab
dBASE III and dBASE III+ were different enough that they are generally
considered two different "big release" products.

I used to automate a lot of grunt work by putting code in dBASE tables. It's
real easy to do that. You can make a sophisticated menu system using mostly
just tables with code embedded. I was quite productive back then without
having to type a lot.

~~~
teh_klev
I remember when dBase III+ shipped, there were some nice new features though
we moved over to Clipper when that launched and completely avoided the "joy"
of dBase IV. I did also try out another couple of compilers called Quicksilver
and dBXL, but Clipper ate their lunch.

I wrote quite a few tens of thousands of lines of code in Clipper (using the
BRIEF editor) all the way up until ~1998. By then I'd more or less switched to
VB+SQL Server.

Gotta say I really loved working with Clipper, it was a really nice superset
of dBase but had many of it's own specific design features.

------
tsumnia
I will admit a love/hate for Access. Namely, from years of teaching Microsoft
Office as Intro to Computing. Access was always the section that was hard to
convince students they'd ever need and worse yet outright made the class
logistically harder for Mac users.

I will say, however, Access has SOME benefit to Information Systems education,
especially in a general IS class. These students are marketing, accounting,
etc. and so Access offers these students a quick dip into the world of DBs to
understand how they operate without requiring they set up a local server or
import some complex SQL statement.

This is a super niche group though, one that does not warrant much support. If
someone were to develop an online Access-themed learning environment that
taught those same basics, it would have the exact same benefits without the
tangled Office requirement.

~~~
asdfman123
I wonder how many people became actual programmers due to Access. I feel like
MS can't remove it just like you can't remove the second rung of a ladder.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
Even if MS feels they can't remove it - the fact they haven't made any
significant improvements to it (even those to keep it usable on modern
computers) means it will die a slow death and leave people stranded - the same
way they did with VB6.

For example, the SQL text editor in Access is so broken if you copy and paste
tab characters they're displayed as zero-width and break text rendering (if
you click+drag to create a text-selection the selection will cover the wrong
text) and you usually get a syntax error if you make any changes to the query
after pasting it (but if you don't modify it then it's fine). Never mind the
lack of syntax-coloring or auto-completion. Microsoft says they are not
planning on making any changes to the SQL text editor:
[https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-
ap...](https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-
application/suggestions/10263849-provide-a-better-sql-editor)

There's also a fun bug where the outermost LEFT OUTER JOIN in a query with 2
or more other joins will fail if the right-hand table has zero rows (but will
work if the right-hand table has zero _matching_ rows).

~~~
perl4ever
I managed to corrupt my database and make all of the code irretrievable just
by pasting a line that was too long, if I remember correctly. Luckily I was
making daily backups.

I also ran into a bug where if you read a long calculated text field from a
view/query through VBA, it corrupts everything after 255 characters, even
though you can get the data otherwise through the interface or save it to a
table. Googling suggested this problem had existed for 10-15 years.

Also, a lot of times your query will return neither a value _or_ null, but
"#error".

And I really hate the way it destroys all your formatting whenever you save a
query. Every time I need to change something, I end up copying to a text
editor and formatting by hand in order to find whatever error I just
introduced.

------
filmgirlcw
When I was 14 or 15, my dad paid me to do work for him over the summer. He was
in real estate and wanted to have a file/database entry for each of the
floorplans and properties he was selling or building. Because I was so young,
I used Access to create a CRUD app of sorts that kept details on all his
projects. He used it for years.

It’s embarrassing for me to admit how long it took me to make the connections
between what I did in Access (and later FileMaker) and MySQL and other
database systems.

When I look back, I’m half-annoyed with myself for not just using a better SQL
tool, but I’m equally pleased/impressed with what I built as a kid.

Airtable is probably the closest we have to “modern” Access - but I agree with
the other comments that point out the value and potential of these types of
tools.

~~~
froindt
Young experiences are how you learn, and make a lasting impression! In high
school I tinkered with computers a lot. I setup SMB shares, ftp servers,
created basic websites, some basic query work. I developed a pretty solid
mental model of how "computer systems" work and talk together.

Now that I'm in industry, I'm one of the people building these "shadow IT"
solutions. I can clearly see how those late nights paid off.

I also act as a liason between the business and IT at times, and can help
bridge the communication gaps.

------
segfaultbuserr
This is the question I always wanted to ask, I almost wrote an Ask HN...

 _Who use Microsoft Access in 2019?!_

An obvious case is creating a glorified/enhanced Excel for some specific
office tasks, another case is that some applications use ".mdb" backend.

But that's all? _edit: What I 'm interested in is cases of using Access for
something other than a specific Excel-like office task - it seems Access is
still used for some serious business in many businesses (pun not intended).

Also, if your office does use Access just for Excel-like tasks, but has
overused it so much, please comment as well, I'd like to hear your story._

 _Who use Microsoft Access in 2019?_

~~~
matheusmoreira
Why would anyone use Access in 2019 when they can use SQLite instead? Is it
because Access has a graphical interface?

~~~
listenallyall
Because the vast majority of Access users have it installed locally on their
PC already as part of Office, and have never heard of SQLite. And even if
SQLite was installed, you'd also need a different program altogether to
actually view or input any data. Access includes the engine, the GUI, the
query tools, the form builder in a single program.

------
sydney6
Welcome to MS Office, the Operating System in your Operating System.

"About 30,000,000 lines of code make up the current version of Office that we
are developing."[1]

[1][https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/macmojo/2006/11/02/its-
all-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/macmojo/2006/11/02/its-all-in-the-
numbers/)

------
AngeloAnolin
I think at some point, anyone who used a MS-based operating system at work may
have indirectly stumbled upon MS Access.

No matter how better other tools can be nowadays, there's no denying the fact
that there are businesses who still have smaller MS Access apps that runs
critical business processes.

I have helped a small company (~9-10 years ago) who had an MS-Access based
application where the source code was locked as well as the database. Took a
while to unlock both the source and the database and up until today, that
application is being utilized fully in their operations.

------
ocdtrekkie
The amount of people I work with who use Access who do not understand even the
very basics of computing is shocking.

And half my help tickets now are fixing Access files from multiple users
trying to use them at once...

~~~
Analemma_
The point though is that this isn't Access's fault. If Access didn't exist,
those people wouldn't be magically replaced by expert DBAs who knew how to set
up a perfect solution in Postgres or whatever. They'd be the same people,
except hacking together some Rube Goldberg machine in Excel or Google
Spreadsheets, with even worse functionality and none of the AD controls that
Access at least gives you.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'm not really arguing with the article, just commenting on my experience with
the undead. Access is a brilliant piece of work for what it enables. I think
it's a little unfortunate it isn't better supported, and that more software
isn't built like it.

------
Mountain_Skies
I still use Access from time to time for cleaning up data before importing it
into SQL Server. Importing dirty data into Access is so much easier than with
SSMS. Once cleaned up, SSMS gladly gobbles up the cleaned data from Access.

------
cheschire
Ugh, what a completely appropriate topic for the week of halloween. Zombies,
nightmares, and a lot of late fucking nights saving people from themselves.

------
paultopia
Of course Access isn't dead. It's a:

\- widely known

\- sold by a major and trusted (wisely or unwisely) enterprise company

database

\- that was once shipped directly to essentially every end-user on earth when
it was bundled with office,

and with

\- an actual GUI designed more or less by people who know how to design GUIs.

who on earth would ever have thought that it would die, in the absence of any
replacement with similar properties?!

------
UtahDave
At a previous job an operations analyst built out an Access database because
our IT group never got around to helping him build something more robust. It
actually worked pretty well.

Once we started getting to scaling issues we imported all the tables into
MySQL and had Access use the remote tables that existed in MySQL.

This worked really well. All the forms and various things were in Access and
the tables in MySQL and this scaled out pretty well to many 10s of users.

A nice side benefit is that I was able to reuse a lot of that data in an
internal web application.

------
zafiro17
I'll put in a vote on behalf of access. I work in a consulting industry and as
part of my work I have to track thousands of companies, individuals, tenders,
and projects. It became obvious early on that a nice little DB would simplify
the work. MS Access was there for me, already installed as part of the minimal
software set they make available to us. Months later I offloaded the data to a
Postgresql database (elephantsql.com) and continued using Access as a front
end using the postgresql ODBC component. It's been perfect, and because all my
data is offsite, it goes when I go. I have yet to find a better solution that
Access as a front end to a postgresql database hosted elsewhere. To the person
who suggested sqllite, I'd respond I'm reasonably technical but have no idea
how to do that, so it's no solution to my problem. I used filemaker for a
while on Apple. Linux has no GUI database front ends worth the while -
Libreoffice Base is a weak substitute for Access. Kexi doesn't work as simply
a front end. Excel isn't a database and we spend a lot of time laughing at
people who use Excel when a DB is the proper tool. Any SAAS solution is out of
the question; having a server dedicated to my/our use at work is out of the
question. What's left is Access. Long may it live!

------
Lio
This reminds me of a job I had back in the mysts of time (...or more likely
around 2003ish).

I was brought into a project where a seniour data scientist was working with
MS Access but was runing out of room as it, at the time, had a database size
limit of 1Gb on disk and our data set was about 2.5Gb in size.

We could have ported the whole thing to SQLite3, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL or
even Oracle as we had site wide licences available.

Nope. MS Access was the favourite tool of this guy so in MS Access the data
had to stay and I had to write code to juggle data between multiple
simulataniously connect databases on a single machine.

This taught me a lot about how scienitst and accademics approach software
engineering. My boss was both brilliant and really dum at the same time. He
just wanted to get from A-to-B as "simply" as possible. He wasn't interested
maintainablitly or assethics.

To this day the whole business still brings me out in a cold sweat of
cognative disonance because on some level I know he may have had a point but
on the other hand... I STILL have the flatspot that work gave me on my
forehead from all the pointless wall banging involved.

I still beleive his work saved the company involved millions if not billions
over years since it was presented. (...and I have never accepted another
contract involving VBA or other Microsoft technologies since.)

------
kqvamxurcagg
I work for a small finance firm. Before I joined everything was maintained ad-
hoc in spreadsheets with no defined structure or consistency. I developed an
Access database that now acts as our data warehouse and reporting engine. We
are talking here about tens of thousands of rows of data not millions. Access
has forms that allow non-technical users easy access. SQL queries can run more
complicated reports. Excel can also easily import Access queries and tables.

Programmers often don't understand that Excel and Access are valuable because
you don't need a programmer, simply a professional with some technical
knowledge. Developing a fully-fledged solution would slow you down and
increase your developer headcount by 1. If any modifications need to be made
you could waiting weeks for an IT/Developer team to react. IT often acts as a
blocker for us trying to get work done with limited data sets.

There is nothing else quite like Access on the market. Air table is but a toy
for those of us in business that need a serious tool that can integrate with
Excel and has aggregate and SQL querying capabilities.

------
askvictor
I've just been teaching some basics of DB to high school students; wanting to
introduce the concepts of tables, forms, reports and queries, but without need
to know too much technical stuff, administration etc. Access should have been
perfect (I hadn't used it previously, but have programmed, used and
administered a number of 'real' DB systems), but it just didn't make sense to
me. I'm sure I could have learned it, but the workflow just wasn't obvious. As
well as being ugly as hell. So I went looking for alternatives, and they're
thin on the ground.

Went with Zoho Creator in the end, but even some of the concepts in that
aren't intuitive (it treats forms and tables as the same thing).

Having done quite a few things with anvil.works in recent times as a 'modern
Delphi' I'm left wondering when the 'modern Access' will arrive.

------
Doctor_Fegg
> a special crowd that’s rarely targeted these days: technical people who
> aren’t serious coders

Flash had a bit of this too, especially in the ActionScript 1 days - albeit
from a design rather than a business background. So too did every 8-bit micro
that booted into an adequate BASIC. It’s a shame that we’ve largely lost this.

------
jmkni
My first proper dev job was in a call center.

When I started, they used Microsoft Access almost exclusively. They would put
an MDB file on a shared network drive and every agent would open it to input
caller data via the forms. Maybe 100 people with the same MDB open. Mental. No
backups, lots of (data) corruption!

------
rym_
I was once (or maybe still am) one of these power users. Started out with
writing VBA macro's in excel to automate some work, probably created some
monstrosities in excel. Then migrated over to MS Access and eventually taught
myself proper (MS-)SQL which I have been developing in for over 9 years.

One of my crutches is exactly that, that SQL is more or less the only language
I have mastered and when I while I feel like I am skilled enough to develop
complex databases, I am always lost at creating a proper frontend for end-
users. Quite often I will resort to MS Access as a light frontend (holding no
data and minimal coding), just a bunch of forms.

Does anyone know an alternative to this? If I just want some forms but don't
want to dive into web-based applications, what alternatives to access exist?

~~~
MayeulC
If you don't need it to be on the web, Python + Sqlite isn't too bad. Then a
GUI like pyqt could do the trick (with UI designed in Qt designer). It still
requires some coding, though.

If you need it to be on the web, php + Mysql is probably one of the easiest to
learn. The cool kids might have moved to something else, like node or django,
though. It also requires learning done basic HTML, but the complexity is
reasonable.

~~~
rym_
I've dabbled a bit in Python here and there and indeed I feel this is most
likely the route I will take, before web (as this is not a requirement for me
as of now).

------
phaedrus
I think Microsoft Access has a lot in common with Javascript. Both are
Lovecraftian horrors that no sane person would (clean-sheet) design in their
current form. Both derive their ubiquity from having been the only or nearly
the only option in their domain. Javascript being the only way to write web-
native programs and already there in the browser, and Access being the only
database available to users without admin rights on their computers and
already there in the Microsoft Office suite. Both are tragedies of opportunity
cost for the history of computing by pre-empting or delaying the emergence of
any replacement built on superior technical foundations.

------
raintrees
I, too, still have solutions in use as LOB apps based on Access. I have looked
at other tools, being an officionado of Python, I started there. Got
sidelined/sidetracked by Django, came back around to plain Python 3. Then I
have to pick a GUI, currently playing with QT4, then get the DB connection
working, hopefully against MySQL/MariaDB so I can have the solution multi-
platformed... And so on.

I already have my annual revenue needs met by a service business, this is now
all a side-hustle thing, but it has been a slog.

I do appreciate QT's visual Designer app, it makes creating forms more like
Access/VB.

------
mwexler
Anyone want to suggest alternates? What's the "whip it up in a few hours" for
"power users" today?

~~~
hiccuphippo
Google forms + spreadsheet

~~~
Analemma_
Access is the "too much for Excel, not enough for an RDBMS" solution. If it's
too much for Excel, it's way too much for Google Spreadsheets, which is far
behind Excel in functionality.

~~~
deckar01
My organization recently adopted Office 365. One of the new apps was
"PowerApps", a web-based GUI app builder. I popped open an example app
inspected a button and, to my horror, I found the program logic was Excel
syntax one-liners. When I checked the data binding for the app, it pointed to
an XLSX spreadsheet on OneDrive. Time is a flat circle...

~~~
WorldMaker
With 64-bit Excel capable of working with up to 4GB files, it sometimes feels
like Excel itself ate/replaced Access for certain classes of business and
shadow IT use.

~~~
dr-detroit
Only 20 minutes to do a pivot table who needs practical skills when you have
MS Office installed and the misplaced trust of your company?

------
vaporland
Years ago an acquaintance was running a MICROS POS for his restaurant, and
lamented the heavy tax burden the local government levied on him.

I was able to create an external software application (we called it
"CookBooks") that would selectively skim off cash transactions (ignoring
credit card transactions) from the Access database.

This allowed him to reduce his tax liability and pocket a substantial amount
of cash on a nightly basis.

This was in 2002 and I recall that it took no time at all to gain update
access to the underlying proprietary Access database powering the MICROS
system.

------
dwd
I don't get asked about working with Microsoft Access that often, except when
it comes to interfacing an online store with a POS or Accounting system.

MYOB Retail Manager, which you will find in many bricks & mortar stores as
their POS system (often with multiple registers), uses MS Access as its
database.

Why they never switched to SQLite or MSSQL Lite I don't know but it's there,
does the job most of the time (except when it corrupts itself) and there's no
value in moving away from it, and going all-out online is a big scary change
for them.

------
thrower123
Since I haven't seen anybody mention it yet, another old contender in this
class was Lotus Notes/Domino. NoSQL before NoSQL was cool.

I worked with an ex-Lotus guy once, and he always raved about how easy it was
to build out LOB apps with it and have a pretty capable little database in a
single .nsf file.

IBM has washed their hands of it, but I know of a lot of big corporation, and
especially militaries, that are still running applications on top of Notes.

~~~
topspin
I've brought up Notes in the past. My encounter was with a synthetic DNA
company that was spread all over the planet; two US states, two European
countries and Japan. Notes delivered reliable, distributed databases to all of
these sites using marginal hardware, intermittent network connections and
without much maintenance.

------
viburnum
I learned SQL from the Access 95 manual. That was the start of my programming
career. My life would have been completely different without it.

~~~
bdz
Wish older books like that was more available online

------
elchief
JET should die (or whatever the storage engine is called). But the GUI builder
is useful. You can use postgres or whatever as your backend

------
caseyf7
Let’s not forget those teams still using FileMaker.

~~~
zaphod420
I really like FileMaker.

------
louis8799
Coming from a banking background, I know that Access is heavily used in the
financial industry, including Investment Banks.

~~~
heelix
My Bride use to work for one of the big 'third bucket' credit card companies.
Someone had discovered the northwinds tutorial database, changed the labels,
and reworked the business processes to fit the queries - all tables were left
as found. The best part was eventually, after acquisition, they had a
directive that all databases must be ported over to Oracle... and some soul
got to see the horrors of what was done and convert it.

~~~
IgniteTheSun
This has to be my favorite story on this topic today. Triumph and tragedy in
the same instance - tragedy that the person mentioned didn't learn how to use
Access properly and triumph in that the person overcame, adapted, and
innovated to find a solution.

The second sentence of your post contains both joy and heartache and - in my
opinion - could stand alone as a short story for the tech crowd almost on par
with the record holder for shortest short story ever.

These are some of the golden nuggets that I used to read Slashdot for 15 years
ago and now find on HN.

------
euske
The three characteristics in OP reminds me of PHP. 1) It was aimed at people
who aren't that much of a programmer, 2) it made them feel empowered, and 3)
it just works in a relatively simple setup.

(I'm posting only because I thought that someone must have mentioned this for
sure, but couldn't find one.)

------
maslam
Here's a little known fact - the Jet storage engine behind Access is alive and
well. It's used by Active Directory and many other products at Microsoft. At
my previous company, we built a distributed key-value store on top of it (much
like using sqlite in a distributed manner).

------
hermitdev
I once worked with a piece of 3rd party financial software, that I won't name.

We used their reporting functionality to extract data to import to our firms
systems. Access was their intermediary data store. SQL Server -> Access ->
CSV.

I had to support this, so I was one of only 2 people at the firm that was
allowed to have Access installed.

Not necessarily Access's fault, but these reports failed routinely. Ended up
with a Python script wrapping the whole process and retrying so I didn't get
called at night. probably not Access's fault, but still leaves a bad taste in
my mouth. Access is regarded as a toy, even more so than MySQL.

------
lsllc
Not forgetting FoxPro and dBase & friends!

~~~
Roboprog
I think Access is more like Paradox, with code and data bundled together (for
better or worse), rather than numerous PRG, DBF and index files that have to
be “deployed” together.

Yeah, I did a lot of dBase / Clipper back in the mid 80s for rent money while
I was in college. Liked the ease of use, but index corruption on a multi user
network killed it off. And you have to write code, vs allowing users to
accrete stuff on the screen with a GUI.

------
teekert
Our project's central database atm is an Excel sheet that different people
interact with in different ways, Manually, Using macros and using Python
(openpyxl and Pandas). It works well. Would Access be a step up?

------
somewhereoutth
Reading these comments really brings me back! If I remember correctly,
developing a simple project reporting system based on Access, and using forms,
was my first foray into professional software development (I had actually
trained as a Mech. Eng.) - a career that took me from sleepy Surrey, in the
UK, all the way to Silicon Valley! One thing that sticks in my mind is tab
ordering of input fields - the difference from an occasional user to those who
would use a system heavily every day.

------
CWuestefeld
Interesting that the pie chart in the article omits Oracle - which was
actually the #1 DB in the survey results. Not that I'm a fan of Oracle at all,
but it makes me wonder.

~~~
zzzeek
saw that and it's very glaring. the author should be contacted.

------
phkahler
One great thing about Access is the graphical query builder. Not only is it
easier than writing SQL, you can use it for learning SQL by changing view from
graphical to SQL.

------
tyingq
Access is still in the "Intro to Computing" classes in a bunch of lower level
US Colleges. I suppose because they don't want to update their materials.

------
sam_lowry_
Forms over linked tables from MySQL or Oracle are a perfect use case for
Access even in 2019. Initial setup is messy but it can be automated for end
users.

------
glxybstr
>Clearly, there are people still interested in Access, even if it’s only
because they’re trying to untangle the mess left for them by a previous
generation of hobbyist programmer.

My job function entails extending and maintaining an MS Access database that
our small company still uses as its primary tool for data entry and reporting.
It started on Access 97, moving up through a few new releases until about
2010, which we stayed on until just this year. It's now working with the O365
edition. It was first developed by someone with no previous experience,
referencing a copy of Access 97 for Dummies. I learned on the job just by
poking around - which is now, I think, the biggest pain point for how we use
the software: how exposed everything is. Prior to this role, our company would
contract out for development: we'd come up with a big list of things we want,
and it would be done and deployed within a couple week's time, although it
usually took many revisions to get right. Now that I am able to do this
development work in-house, things go much more smoothly as I also work with
the day-to-day processes the tool is used for, and I have a grasp on how
systems operate within our office. It's very important to have database tools
with a low barrier to entry, so I think there would always be some market for
this; where it really shines is its straightforward reporting and form editing
capabilities, along with its user-friendly query designer. Being able to
generate complex datasets without having to think about SQL (though still
being able to write SQL!) is powerful.

(as an aside, I feel that I'm ready to move on from my role, but my abilities
with Access don't seem exactly desirable or hireable, and as the article
describes, there's always a looming threat of it going away someday. I was
given a title of "Database Administrator" from higher-ups who think of Access
as some esoteric ability, although gambits for pay raise so far have been
fruitless. I see it more like ability in using Excel. I have some experience
with MySQL via personal projects and programming in PHP, but I wouldn't call
myself a dba if I'm being honest with myself. I feel a little stuck by not
having the abilities to match my job title when searching for new positions,
and if I'm going to the trouble of getting a new job, I don't want a lateral
move with the same compensation. The wise thing to do would be to learn
competence in proper database tools. I'm young, without a degree, and any
advice would be welcome)

~~~
alexhutcheson
If you want to learn to do similar work (CRUD apps that talk to a DB) in
"real" languages, then I would recommend learning Ruby on Rails[1] or
Django[2]. The overall concepts should be really familiar, because they're
similar to the workflow you'd use in Access, but you'll learn web development
and a marketable programming language along the way. You'll probably also pick
up details about how to structure a database that would be useful for your
work in Access. Of the two, I think Rails is easier to get started with, but
Python is probably more marketable.

If you want to do a deep-dive into Computer Science and transition to a full-
time software role, then you might want to look into Lambda School[3]. I don't
have personal experience with them, but several people I trust claim their
results are excellent.

[1]
[https://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html)

[2]
[https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/intro/tutorial01/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/intro/tutorial01/)

[3] [https://lambdaschool.com/courses/full-stack-web-
development](https://lambdaschool.com/courses/full-stack-web-development)

------
miki123211
In polish high schools, Access is still a part of the computer science
curriculum (for those who take CS). It doesn't have to be Access specifically,
but it is in 99% of cases. You can't really avoid it, as it's required on the
Matura exam. I've heard rumors that some teachers even teach the point and
click interface instead of SQL.

~~~
froindt
To be fair, if you're gonna be in access, their SQL query writing interface is
a steaming pile of issues. In my experience:

1) You can't do multi-line queries. After executing, it'll smash it all to one
line again.

2) You can't add comments. After executing, it'll delete them out.

3) It doesn't do any syntax highlighting.

\----

Years ago I worked for a company who had _tons_ of manufacturing production
data. Someone built an interface to query the data - used by just a couple
people. Mind you, this isn't Access, it was homebrew software. Eventually word
spread about the data you could access, and dozens to hundreds of people got
access.

They never got to the top of the priority list to make it multi-user, separate
profiles, create permissions on queries, etc.

There was a mandatory 8 hour training session with a test before getting
access to the environment. Dev queries were automatically deleted 90 days
since last run. On prod, 365 days. This was to reduce clutter. Query names
were terse. You had to know people who knew what queries did. Comments were
used sparingly. Anyone could edit and view any query available.

I copied a query, made edits, then executed. Got weird results. It took 1.5
days to figure out the parser was messed up! First, line comments using ' were
excluded. Next block comments using /* */ were excluded. However, if a macro
was called inside a block comment, it was executed.

That was the most frustrating bug I've ever debugged. Literally I'd copy the
query, it'd run successfull, I'd comment out a couple returned values, and
it'd fall on it's face because of how macros worked.

------
jeffdavis
It's hard to beat the ease-of-use of Access for simple data management. I
don't see any modern replacement.

------
leeman2016
I find MS Access not as intuitive as the other siblings though. Wish there was
a "You Suck at Access" video like this one
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c)]

------
camexp
I'm still working on a replacement for a still-in-use a2k distributed database
front-end (moved the data to mysql a few years back), it's taking forever,
it's a huge project I spent over ten years on, and now another ten year trying
to replace it.

------
treve
It feels like th true replacement for Access right now is Excel/Google sheets.
Not nearly as versatile, but it serves the same audience. I wish we had a good
general purpose widely available Access replacement that's just a level above
spreadsheets

------
jalla
Any database system that has a 'Repair' function is a liability. Access should
be taught as a primer at schools and universities on what not to use. It's the
BASIC of databases - considered harmful.

~~~
kabes
Then again, you can use a connector to connect it to MSSQl, MySQl, Oracle and
others. And you still have a very powerful tool for reporting, forms, queries
etc.

~~~
jalla
Still, the database engine was/is a liability as long as the locking policy
and the transaction support messed up your data. As a one-user only system it
was fine, however people developed critical, multi-user business systems with
this toy engine. It allowed uneducated cowboys to develop systems fast that
failed horribly.

------
hnruss
My first job was to finish building a website that used MS Access as the
database. I only learned years later how bad of an idea that was. Guess that’s
what you get when you hire a programmer for minimum wage.

------
jtth
If AirTable worked offline it could stage a little incursion into this space.

------
29athrowaway
Try Kexi (Qt, part of Caligra Office, formerly KOffice) and glom (GTK)

------
bradchoate
Would have liked to have read that article, but Medium doesn't want... oh
right; "Open Link in Incognito Window". There, I fixed it.

Remind me... why are people publishing on Medium again?

------
buboard
Why would it die. Most of the internet is a rehash of MS access.

------
MR4D
It would be great if we had a SQLite interface for Excel.

That would get us halfway there, and make it easy for companies to use
(getting off of excel is a different proposition altogether).

------
sqldba
What’s weird is that they don’t address those issues and improve or replace
it.

There’s nothing in the easy database/UI space at the moment and it has gone
unfilled for a long time.

------
dlphn___xyz
access is probably the easiest tool for prototyping a CRUD app

------
fencepost
_Ahem_

"Hypercard"

Is it actually dead yet?

------
uslic001
I have not used it in over 10 years but it used to be great back in the day
when Excel was not enough but more expensive SQL databases were too much.

------
wwn_se
If you import excel files to access and connect to a db using odbc you can
write sql statements combining both.

------
senderista
When I was consulting I probably got a call to recover a corrupted Access
database at least once a week.

------
j45
There's little that can replace access in one interface/app. Have hopes for
airtable. :)

------
qwerty456127
Someone should make a modern thing. With SQLite for the files and Python for
the code.

------
tiku
With the current "low code" hype in mind, i guess access is exactly that..

------
mproud
Minecraft? Does he mean Minesweeper? Minecraft Is very alive and very well.

------
catchmeifyoucan
Would you all consider Airtable an Access replacement?

------
Ace__
Hello.

I made my MVP v2 in Access. Currently testing it and getting it checked out by
a few founders, then I will release it, for free. Well, almost free, email
collection.

It took me 10 months, which is fast considering the Excel version (MVP v1)
took me 4 years, but then the Excel version has the whole concept from
beginning to end, and there was a lot to learn, still a lot to learn really.
The Access version covers only the first 9 steps. What I made was a startup
system that guides founders from idea to early traction.

Access was not my first choice. I thought after the Excel version that I would
use either a no or low code solution, a RAD tool, or some sort of visual
development thing. As you have guessed I am not a programmer. I did dabble in
BASIC, well a bit more than dabble, when my dad got me a Speccy. I enjoyed it,
there is beauty in logic no matter how Phaedrus cuts it, but it was a means to
an end really. From Draw and Beep through to Deluxe Paint 3 and OctaMed, it
was about expression. I am not saying programming isn't a form of expression,
but it is the long way round to me.

A few years later, I had to learn some Turbo Pascal, in order to make a
database I think, talking 24 years ago, so I can't actually remember. But I do
remember being bored out of my mind. So, I quit my computing degree. It was
strange, I had an Amiga I could make things on. My college had just got some
multi-media computers, yet in university, we had these stiff monochrome 486's.
They didn't sing, didn't dance, looked awful but they did go a long way.
Sheesh Kitkat.

Second time round at university many years later, I had to face programming
again, this time it was Java, JavaScript and Object Orientated Delphi. OOD I
liked, the other two I tolerated, for it was just a programming module rather
than the whole thing.

After I had finished the Excel version, obtained feedback, tweaked and
modified this and that, it was onto MVP v2. I looked at a shed-load of stuff,
Bubble, Kexi, Lazarus, My Visual Database, Delphi 10.3, App Builder, Zoho
Creator, Cross UI, Airtable, to name but a few. There were issues with all of
them:

1\. Not enough control and/or functions 2\. Cumbersome and tedious to do
anything 3\. A sense of detachment as if I was having an OBE 4\. Database; I
don't care about connections, stacks and what-not, just sit in the background,
and save stuff. 5\. Process, and output what I tell you to do, and send
outputs so they are inputs in other places 6\. Questionable documentation 7\.
Customer support non existent, unresponsive or just prone to sending me back
to the documentation I checked before hand 8\. Tutorials and lessons showing
how to make clones of well-known startups, or rudimentary apps 9\. Holding me
and anybody I share it with over a barrel 10\. Unnecessarily complicated

So anyway, I decided fudge it, let me take a look at Access, it's been sat
there for years. Many other people have it, although not Mac users. I am not a
complete novice when it comes to Access, I know a little about 1,2 and 3 step
normalisation, although I didn't strictly stick to it. Yeah I had to learn a
bit of SQL and VBA, and any questions I had were already answered countless
times on forums, although usage and disagreement of ! and . was annoying.

I was obviously unable to make what I really wanted, but I was able to make
something close enough for what I deemed as necessary at this moment in time,
in order to at least give a user a taste of what I propose. The minimum part
of the MVP had to cut across the board, like a slice of cake, bit of
everything.

I got asked a few times why am I using or used Access. I could have mentioned
the above list, but the crux of it was, to me it was the tool for the job,
with a support network around it, with very few chains and shackles, at a
stretch I could do it on my own. I couldn't give a hoot about stacks,
dependencies, libraries, etc. The latest languages, scalability, etc, whats
that to do with an MVP?

I am proud of what I made. I won't be pulling out my who gives a toss but me
violin in a public forum, but it's a tough lonely slog. It was my idea, and I
had to use what I could to bring it to some sort of fruition. A small stepping
stone in the right direction.

Cheers, Ace.

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antb123
Django admin + sqlite?

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sgt
Is there a mirror of Medium articles? I am stuck at the paywall for this one.

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egdod
> You've completed your member preview for this month, but when you sign up
> for a free Medium account, you get one more story.

Literally worse than blogspot in every way.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Not really. The Blogger/Blogspot UI is a special case of steaming garbage.
It's a heavy-weight, bloated webapp whose primary task is to display a few
kilobytes of static text on the screen. I think they should be used as a case
study of what can go wrong within a team for a blog engine to look like that.

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iammyIP
why is microsoft access called microsoft access? because only microsoft has
access to it.

