Forum Discussion
Moving Away from MS Access
No war, just the discussion.
With any RAD, including Access, no one knows what is happening in the background either.
It is beyond my understanding to read that replacing one tool with another and somehow people would understand low level bits and pieces. Nope. Who actually knows how Git works? Azure?
Do we care? Absolutely not. Can't care less.
The automated or semi-automated tools exist exactly for that reason. Not to make anyone dumb, but productive. Access was born on that premise, just like FoxPro before that. But, we passed that point, no matter of the problem someone is trying to "solve". We are not solving the fundamental issue here, which is the Internet.
With non-Access database, the db responsibility is moved to the DBA in a medium to large organization. This move still does not solve the fundamental issue.
Finally, it does not solve the fact that we are getting old and tired. We, people who started with FoxPro, then moved to VisualFox, then Access, then Oracle, etc etc.
My suggestion: don't over complicate. People with no previous skills with any JS or Web technologies successfully built huge Apps. Desirable apps. Portable Apps. Yes, portable as click-and-run. Which complete app size does not exceed a few kb. Yes, that is a kb.
Here is the PWA App, so click-and-run product from Microsoft:
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/dynamics-365-business-central-online/9PGZQJ12JV75
It looks fantastic. It's a killer app, allright.
Here is my super small 113Kb migrated (yes, passed through the free tool), Access template from the above pic:
https://msaccess.pythonanywhere.com/wip:
https://northwind.pythonanywhere.com/
The exact App can run on Azure in a few minutes, as demonstrated above with git command.
Put that into the context, the App was built in 3 hrs. It is almost the same time as for Access template.
If one moved to Dynamics from the start, ultimately the fundamental issue would be solved. Dynamics is not my tool of choice, btw. It is great tho.PS
Edited in Jan 2023 with: Regarding Northwind Traders featured template in Access 2019, it is still in wip on the above site. Here is the interesting idea, the Export of this app can be used with any database created from the same template! Providing the database is uploaded and migrated just like this one was. Of course, if the template DB structure was not changed.
And the extra benefit, the App can use SQL Server or any other supported database. The actual data can also be automatically migrated to a target database.
The complete migration process is documented on Help page at the above links.