Re: What database shall I use???

kennedy-family_at_attbi.com (Jim Kennedy) wrote in <P1zj8.25287$702.13073_at_sccrnsc02>:

>Not sure if you are boasting or apologizing for being in the
>business since 1995. For some of us that isn't very long ago.

Well, that was only how long I've been using Access, which was introduced in only 1993. I've actually been doing desktop db development since 1989 (started with Paradox).

That's not terribly long, no, but it's long enough to have gone through at least 3 generations of db tools.

The comment was not a matter of bragging at all, but of showing that in 7 years of creating Access applications, proper design principles and proper administration of the operating environment have made Access a perfectly reliable and acceptable platform for the small-business db applications my clients need. The value is there, as well as more than acceptable reliability.

My only point in posting to this cross-posted thread is to show that Access is in fact appropriate and reliable when it is used appropriately. I would be the first to suggest to a client that Access was inappropriate for any project that needed 24/7 uptime, absolutely unquestionable protection from one byte of data loss, any large number of simultaneous users, huge data stores, or any number of other factors that would make Access inappropriate.

For the clients I work with, small organizations of 1-20 employees, Access works like a dream, and is inexpensive and easy to administer.

However, that does not mean it is always a piece of cake to design reliable apps. Sometimes the balance is very careful.

As Pete Cresswell has said elsewhere, I've recommended to several clients that it was time to plan for a conversion to client/server, but none have ever actually gone through with it. And they've managed quite well, actually.

-- 
David W. Fenton                        http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net                http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc