Access 2010 with Sharepoint 2010
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From: David W. Fenton on 15 Nov 2009 20:23 A couple of links for Albert: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/15/trusting_cloud_storage/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/15/rackspace_no_more_servers/ The first article doesn't have the payoff it promises in the first page, and only deals with the storage aspect of cloud computing and not the software-as-service part of it, but most software-as-service applications will be storing data in the cloud, too, so it's an aspect of the issue. The second article is about how much sysadmins hate administering servers. I don't get this one, but I've never been involved in a huge organization, only ones where there were half a dozen servers at most (each for a different purpose). That just sort of makes the point I was making elsewhere, that enterprise-level organizations have different issues than small businesses (and I would say any business with under 100 employees is a small business). Food for thought/fodder for discussion. -- David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/ usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/
From: James A. Fortune on 18 Nov 2009 10:43 On Nov 15, 5:29 pm, "David W. Fenton" <XXXuse...(a)dfenton.com.invalid> wrote: > "James A. Fortune" <CDMAPos...(a)FortuneJames.com> wrote innews:a2d9cea4-4e83-43b1-945c-a309ed6f9d09(a)u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com > : > > > In spite of how great VBA has been > > for marvelously extending the capabilies of Access, I think > > Microsoft's decision to let it die slowly of relative neglect is > > probably a wise decision, yet one that will eventually cause me to > > have to take much more time to write code. > > I think this "decision" of which you speak is a complete figment of > your imagination. I think that the many PDC 09 sessions covering all the great new plans for VBA are a figment of your imagination. James A. Fortune CDMAPoster(a)FortuneJames.com "...the Droid can get e-mail from an Exchange server that does not use ActiveSync policies..." -- http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/deathmatch-motorola-droid-versus-iphone-566
From: Albert D. Kallal on 19 Nov 2009 23:06 "David W. Fenton" <XXXusenet(a)dfenton.com.invalid> wrote in message Sorry, about leaving this..I was sick for a day..and really got behind as a result... however, tehre is few points to make her: >> >> Millions and millions of people use Gmail. > > Not real businesses, just individuals. Actually, there is very large number of auto dealers, equipment sales and companies with 100's of employees that sell things on eBay. It not just all individuals . There also popular CRM systems like sugarCrm that are cloud based. > And I think it's a bad idea, > since despite there "do no evil" pledge, they still have access to > the data and can do all sorts of things they might not be "evil" > from their point of view, but which might not align with the > interests of their users. I will say that most, if not all of the cloud based offerings from Microsoft are better than the competition in that most allow offline mode (the purchase of grove networks was the reason for this ability). And, keep in mind that a significant portion of email users don't "host" their own e-mail servers. This is not a business solution for everything, but do keep in mind the concept of cheap and easy and available, it tends win in the marketplace... >> People are not listing to the recommends not to use cloud systems. >> >> L.A. votes to "Go Google"; pressure shifts to Google and the cloud >> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=26641&tag=nl.e539 >> >> I can get 100's of articles like the above in which county's and >> municipalities and school districts on jumping on this bandwagon. > > There are 1000s of articles on Web 2 and it's just a buzzword that > most of the people using it don't really understand, and that at > base really only describes an incremental change in available > functionality. don't confuse a fundamental architecture change in our industry, to that of buzzwords and hype > > Then there's all the hype about social networking and such. I don't > recall if you specifically responded, but when I posted that I was > trying out Twitter, it resulted in a lot of folks in the Access > newsgroups declaring how useless it was and how they'd never use it. twitter and social networking is not a fundamental engineering problem that our computer industry is attempting to solve by adopting these new technologies. perhaps some of the social networking saw the result of adoption this new technology, but at the end of the day twitter is not an engineering solution for access or software developers. > > The point is: if you believed half they hype you'd think that 75% of > us were using social networking tools. > > They aren't. > > It's all hype. you have to distinguish between fundamental architecture designs and how we build software, and that of hype, let me explain: In the mid nineteen eighties bill gates was talking about this concept of software becoming a component, or reusable application that you can plug into other applications. Most people thought it was hype. Most people thought it was crazy. Then, all the buzz words came out...OLE, activeX, com (they all mean the same thing). The result of a whole above issue who was that of what we call "com" or so called object automation (in fact the names been changed over the years, and is at one time refer to as OLE, or activeX). The critical concept, or thing to keep in mind was ONCE applications that were written to the com object model meant that other applications would be able to automate or use an application.(are never dare this time period, and often clients of mine who would ask me to choose some contact manager from Symantec, or from Maximizer, I always had them purchase the one that could be "automated". You see, back then, not all software could be used as a com object). In fact, when I read papers about this new future, I can remember some years later the exact place and time when I was in a store reading about the new version of office that would allow the components to be used in your code. Furthermore the prediction of a bunch of software vendors springing up to sell you re-usable components that you could use off the shelf also occurred. Now you can purchase a great grid control, or calendar control, or one of my favorite list controls from bennet-tec here: http://www.bennet-tec.com/products.htm So, that future was correct, but that future could not occur tell the basic building blocks and underlying technologies in the industry had changed! (that is what is occurring right now with cloud systems). In fact when I read about these future technologies, at the time I was working in a mainframe system that allowed my code to automate a word processor and spreadsheet, I realized if that technology is coming to the desktop, then I going to get into the computer software business. So reading about that fundamental change in technology is what got me into the desktop side of this computer industry! When access came out and 91 and 92, it was developed around OLE technologies that Microsoft had been developing and working on for about eight years. Compared to products like FoxPro at the time, the separation of the data engine from the programming language was a critical concept in the success of access. It also the result of the architecture and design that MANY years later allow access to adopt ADO. FoxPro in that same time had to be completely reengineer to separate out the date engine parts. so, it turns out that the fundamental investments in those technologies paid out big time about 8-9 years later. We see exactly the same thing with the investments in .net that happened years ago, people don't understand the fundamental change in the basic technology and how we're building software that occurred. >> Google xml and web services and soap.... >That still doesn't tell me anything useful. Sounds like just another buzzword. You failing to distinguish between some fad like twitter and the underlying underpinnings of our software industry. Soap, or so called "web services" is really important. Just like "com" was critical and instrumental to the success of access, and gave it a long jump and long life, when you're developing with .net, and you set up a reference to a web service, all of the web sites properties and methods of that web site now become available as property and methods in your code. In a sense, "soap" or a "web service" is like a com object automation for the desktop top. If I write an application in ms-access that uses word + outlook, then I am automating several applications. In "web land", they even have a name for when you use several web services, and it called a mash up. So this is really the same concept of OLE, ActiveX, com but now is or the web. And, guess what transport format is used when you talk to those web objects? (we don't call them web objects, but we could/should have called them that, since that we what we call these things on the desktop land). So, for the web, we call this web services (or soap). Anyway, the typically messaging formatted used to shuffle data from that web service to the client? Well, goooly...it is XML! So, soap, and xml are not a fad or a buzzword like twitter is. They are fundamental building blocks that our industry adopted that allows software to consume a web service just like ms-access developers might consume or automate word or outlook. So many said that OO was a fad. Today there is simply not a modern development language right now being produced by any software vendor that is really not an OO language. in fact I think the only popular widespread development platform that's not OO these days is ms-access! > > Until widespread use of AJAX, most browser-based apps were only a > step above green screen in terms of either how they worked I agree, and it takes a bit of time for fundamental technologies to come all together to make something really happen in our industry. AJAX is also what allows access web services to work and produce beautiful running applications in the browser. > >>>I've been heavily committed to Windows Terminal Server and >> remote desktop access for a very, very long time, so perhaps my >> clients have been getting the majority of the benefits from the >> standpoint of access without using this particular buzzword >> technology. >> >> Yes, but on the other side, there not a architecture that scales >> to millions of >> users at a reasonable cost. > > But Access developers are not in that sphere in the first place. Ah, excellent.... Keep in mind that these cloud based operating systems don't have a bunch of people running around installing software on them. All you'll see is a loading dock with forklifts pulling servers in and out all day long. New ones for additional capacity, and on the way out are ones that had a problem. There's no people running around actually installing or setting up software on those servers... > Even when an Access developer is working for a large company, very > seldom is she maintaining any apps that are used by more than a > handful of people. Just like I said the investments in access in the early 90's produced a product that had a VERY long run in our industry, the access web services are based on a cloud computing model. (this is **significant ** for several reasons). just like we know that access on a file share doesn't work well over a wan, the fact that I told you access services is based on a cloud computing model will instantly tell you that they will be limitations and certain kind of applications that will not work well. (I'll save my answers in this regards for another post to keep this thing a bit short). > > Who cares? I don't work for companies who have 1000s of employees, > nor even 100s. Why should I be excited about a technology that > solves a problem that my clients will never, ever under any > circumstances encounter? Why should you have been excited by com objects then? Did have to get excited about it? No, but you sure as the heck been using this technology from day one with access. At the end of the day, you have to ask WHAT is the fundamental issue or problem that these new technologies are solving. The answer to this question gives you the answer as to whether it's a fad or not. so, soap or web services + xml was used to bring the "com object" programming paradigm to allow developers to consume applications that run on web servers. .net was not a fad, and the whole concept of web services is not a fad either. >> Again, all this stuff is not a buzz word, > > I'm sorry, but the dreck you just posted about Azure pretty much > demonstrates that it really is a bunch of marketing-speak and not > something real that solves actual problems that the clients of > Access developers have. It's a significant issue for access developer's if you want to build web sites using access, and want cheap affordable and widely available services in the web in which to push those applications onto. Having a bunch of guys running around maintaining some servers and using terminal services is not going to compete with Google, or Amazon's offerings. Cloud computing is all about utility computing, and the architectures they've adopted allows many users at a very low cost. Unfortunately the cost of is an major determining factor in this success in the marketplace. The issues is not does your customer need a web site. The issue is what technologies are they going to use to run the website, and what software is going to run on the web site, and who's going to pay to maintained that server and that software that's running -- that's what cloud computing is all about... > > I don't have a single client who wants to pay for their mainline > software as a service. No, but you can't tell me none want to run a web site? None want to start placing some parts of their business applications on the web? It too expensive to set these things up on a server by a customer by customer basis... There's no question that some companies will want their own web server, but the vast majority of my clients and customers simply don't want bothered with setting up a web server to run that software. It will be most interesting to look back at this posting five years from now. The issue here is an fundamental change in fundamental technologies that are being use to deliver software. It'll take a couple more years for most people's understanding grasp what is going on here, but what's going to happen will happen and it's unstoppable. The change here is very much like "com", and it took about 8 years for the results of "com" in the industry to become a mainstream fundamental part of our industry...the same goes for these cloud systems, and the same happened for web services.... The boat has left the harbor on this..the industry is investing full speed into these technologies, and they will become commonplace in the years to come. -- Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) Edmonton, Alberta Canada pleaseNOOSpamKallal(a)msn.com
From: Albert D. Kallal on 19 Nov 2009 23:10 "James A. Fortune" <CDMAPoster(a)FortuneJames.com> wrote in message news:0fa5b88d-cc5e-44bd-b001- > > I think that the many PDC 09 sessions covering all the great new plans > for VBA are a figment of your imagination. > Well, there is not really that many sessions on office applications at pdc, but we are receiving a 64bit Version of VBA.... No question that receiving 64 bit version of access + VBA is certainly a big hunk of money to spend on something with no future.. -- Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) Edmonton, Alberta Canada pleaseNOOSpamKallal(a)msn.com
From: James A. Fortune on 20 Nov 2009 13:52
On Nov 19, 11:10 pm, "Albert D. Kallal" <PleaseNOOOsPAMmkal...(a)msn.com> wrote: > "James A. Fortune" <CDMAPos...(a)FortuneJames.com> wrote in message > news:0fa5b88d-cc5e-44bd-b001- > > > > > I think that the many PDC 09 sessions covering all the great new plans > > for VBA are a figment of your imagination. > > Well, there is not really that many sessions on office applications at pdc, > but we are receiving a 64bit Version of VBA.... > > No question that receiving 64 bit version of access + VBA is certainly a big > hunk of money to spend on something with no future.. > > -- > Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) > Edmonton, Alberta Canada > pleaseNOOSpamKal...(a)msn.com That's good news Albert. I like VBA. It's good that something is being done. However, it's obvious to me that VBA does not have the level of prominence it once had. I think that the phrase I used -- relative neglect -- is still quite accurate. I don't see that changing. IMO, without us doing something like enhancing VBA with .NET functionality, VBA will soon have too many weaknesses for it to keep Access in its present role as a fairly serious development tool. Maybe Microsoft has future plans for dealing with the VBA weaknesses. Let's hope so. Lack of a 64 bit development environment was certainly one of the weaknesses. I will continue looking into enhancing Access throught .NET, even if it means that some of the work I do will be nullified because of new enhancements by Microsoft, because I will get the new features I want regardless of what features Microsoft decides to add. Plus, some of the new features can even be retrofitted into older versions of Access. Microsoft gave us new possibilities by creating and distributing the .NET Framework, and I intend to implement some of those new capabilities within Access. James A. Fortune CDMAPoster(a)FortuneJames.com |