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  1. #1
    Paul H's Avatar
    Paul H is offline Expert
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    Are you a army of one?


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  2. #2
    June7's Avatar
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    Pretty much. I work for a government agency and using Access is an 'underground' activity - not IT sanctioned/supported. But then IT doesn't really give any software support beyond loading the apps. They are mostly just network managers. The 'official' database is Oracle. This means a single db manager you have to convince of your requirements and 'they' have to set up your backend and permissions and then if you have to modify something - a total bureaucratic nightmare! So we did an end-run around IT and contracting when we needed to convert from a 20-year old DOS dBase db and decided to go with a locally controlled Access db.

    My Access programming experience began when the partially completed db was thrown at me after the original developer (a very bright student intern) found a real job. I was lucky I already understood database principles and programming concepts and that my boss found it worthwhile to hire a consultant to mentor me one-on-one on Access and VBA and get me up to speed on this db. After a few months I quit calling the consultant. Don't remember at what point I discovered forums but they have been a welcome resource to resolve issues that have arisen since.

    I have since been called on to develop dbs for other offices and train personnel to use them.
    How to attach file: http://www.accessforums.net/showthread.php?t=70301 To provide db: copy, remove confidential data, run compact & repair, zip w/Windows Compression.

  3. #3
    Rod is offline Expert
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    As I.T. departments hate Access ...
    Don't they just! Why is this? Somehow Access is not 'proper,' and as for VBA, well you'd think you came from somewhere really bad with the amount of scorn poured on you by otherwise fairly personable programmers.

    I am not now (in fact I'm retired) and have never been a programmer, but along the way I've managed to gain competency in IBM Assembler, DEC Macro 11, COBOL, Fortran, RPG and a few others I've already forgotten. My 'real' occupation was business systems analysis and in the early nineties as a consultant I was given a laptop (very unusual for those days) and a copy of Access (v1) for evaluation. Well it was the ease of form design that got me hooked - it's even better now, in fact I was so impressed I went and bought my own copy for personal use and have bought every subsequent version up to v2007. I have used Access for many personal projects, for many work projects and indeed for prototyping larger systems. But, yes, I was always an army of one.

    Whatever the 'snooty' IT guys may think, Access and VBA are serious contenders in the small end of the market. The ODBC capability gives Access an additional role of providing the 'fancy' front end to the big number crunchers. It's integration via Office Automation with other Office applications (including Microsoft Project) is a really powerful feature.

    Microsoft are to blame for the confusion and floundering of many Access beginners. Access is heralded as 'you don't have to be an expert, just fill in the blanks and off you go.' All very well and good until you need to do something a little different from the wizard. That's where this forum comes in.

    But what is Microsoft doing? Support for VB ended with v6. Access v2007 introduced some (undocumented?) functions of the 'Copy from Outlook' variety. I don't know about v2010. Is Microsoft moving toward a 'black box' application and the eventual discontinuation of VBA?

  4. #4
    Ancient Dragon's Avatar
    Ancient Dragon is offline Novice
    Windows 8 Access 2010 32bit
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rod View Post
    Don't they just! Why is this? .
    Because it's just too sloooow in multiuser environment, and often corrupts its files, or was about 8 years ago, which was when the company I worked for dumped Access for Sybase.

    VB ended with v6.


    Yes, but it was replaced with VB.NET, which is actually easier to work with. I can't say anything about VBA, never used it.

  5. #5
    June7's Avatar
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    Speed has not been an issue. Some complex reports are slow to render, otherwise has served us well. Data corruption hasn't happened but occasionally a user's frontend will go bonkers and I have to manually force an update. Hey, job security!
    How to attach file: http://www.accessforums.net/showthread.php?t=70301 To provide db: copy, remove confidential data, run compact & repair, zip w/Windows Compression.

  6. #6
    Rod is offline Expert
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    I've never heard of data corruption as I understand the term. However there were around the Accesss v2 time, cases of the whole dbs suddenly becomming unopenable (if there is such a word). However even this rarely happened in production but only after modification/development.

    Speed? Access is slippery quick when using DAO on a local db. Less quick on a split implementation, understandable due to network traffic and data contention, but this can be improved by standard techniques. ODBC can be slow. Access is very much at the mercy of the 'foreign' db guru who assigns priorities and privileges. I have successfully implemented 'pull' connections with DB2 and Oracle and 'push' connections with Oracle. The connections were in absolute terms slow, but no slower than remote terminals connected directly to the source system and application.

  7. #7
    Perceptus's Avatar
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    I seem to get people in trouble being an army of one kinda person. It seems to be based with the company and whether or not you are a contractor imo.

    On my current contract I was hired for small bug fixes in an access database, but I would swear its more of Software Architect spanning most of the applications contained in M$ Office. I am periodically reminding people that they should bring their IT concerns to IT and not me, per management.

    Another contract with Exxon the job was straight forward, programming no IT. And the concept of me even getting near IT work was grounds for EoC.

    A contract with Electronic Arts didn't require me to do much of anything besides QA, but my flexibility to use VBA, VBscript and IT made such a difference in the work quality. Granted I did get a nice discount on games, so I really didn't worry about the crossing of work fields in retrospect.



    On a job for an investment firm developing new web apps I was expected to be Programmer, Network Admin, DBA and the list just keeps going. It was a salary position.
    While doing IT for an IT Company I was expected to fix problems reguardless of means as long as it was ethical. This would sometimes include scripting.

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