Re: MS Access usefulness and size restrictions

Larry Linson wrote:

> But, of course, Wayne, if you carried through on your threat to PLONK me,
> not read my contributions to this thread, and not respond to me, then all
> this is lost on you, so you will keep on believing that a very expensive,
> high installation, high maintenance database is the "bees knees" for tiny
> applications and you'll keep on making a fool of yourself in public by
> spouting off and showing your ignorance.
>
> As Hank Williams, Sr. said, "I'm sorry for you, my friend."

I will agree with you provided the following:

1. You know for a fact you will never need to scale your application for more data and/or more users.
2. Security is irrelevant.
3. Your environment is pure Microsoft.
4. You don't have a background in stable computing where being BSOD'd drives your blood pressure up.

When I first consulted for Boeing I was in a department whose purpose was moving applications built in Access to Oracle because they had been developed by people who made invalid assumptions related to the above items.

To me Access is one step above 3x5 cards. The cost of a database application is never in the software purchased from the vendor. It is in the design, implementation, testing, and long-term maintenance. Within three years your Access app will be worthless. The Oracle app will still be as stable as a rock and capable of being migrated to the latest version of the RDBMS in a matter of minutes.

Daniel A. Morgan Received on Sat Jul 21 2001 - 16:21:48 CDT