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Someone builds an access database and it works for a bit but then they leave and no-one else knows how it works so they start exporting the data to excel instead. Access is all about restrictions (the form has these fields; the data is structured like so; input will be validated by these rules) ... Restrictions deliver some value but are brittle - its about as hard to maintain as any other custom built app would be.


Access was much easier to get started with than any other similarly capable database product, last time I checked in 2017.


Its easy to get started, but modifying one made by someone else? You've got to really think like a programmer.


as an anecdote, my own mother, who studied french in university and works in education, has built access DBs for places she's worked before. It seems its a very approachable and beginner friendly UI for non-programmers, somehow.




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