Is DAO still being used for MS Access 2003

[Guest]

Hi! I am reading conflicting articles about DAO not being supported/used
anymore. Some are saying it is dead & replaced by ADO others are saying it
is still being used - DAO for Jet Engines & ADO for other databases such as
SQL Server. Is DAO still worth using or should ADO replace it? Can anyone
answer this question?

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

DAO is definitely alive and well. If all you're doing is working with a Jet
database (i.e.: your tables are in an MDB or MDE file), DAO is still the
best alternative.

In actual fact, if's ADO that's dead: it was replaced by ADO.Net

In Access 2000 and 2002, Microsoft neglected to include a reference to DAO
by default. Fortunately, they came to their senses in Access 2003, and it
automatically includes a reference to DAO (although unfortunately lower in
the search sequence than the reference to ADO, so ADO still takes
precedence)

 

[Guest]

Thank you SOOOOO much, Douglas! This definitely answered my question. I
believe it should help other Access developers as well especially those new
to coding.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Hi! I am reading conflicting articles about DAO not being supported/used
anymore. Some are saying it is dead & replaced by ADO others are saying it
is still being used - DAO for Jet Engines & ADO for other databases such as
SQL Server. Is DAO still worth using or should ADO replace it? Can anyone
answer this question?

DAO is still in use and supported in A2007. Years ago there were a
few people saying ADO was the new thing and everyone should rewrite
thier application in ADO. Those few people were completely wrong.

And DAO has a lot more functionality in Access than ADO does. Granted
the functionality is in places such as creating tables, fields and
indexes which most people wouldn't use all that often.

ADO can also have versioning issues of which DAO has a lot fewer if
any.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[David W. Fenton]

DAO is still in use and supported in A2007. Years ago there
were a few people saying ADO was the new thing and everyone should
rewrite thier application in ADO. Those few people were
completely wrong.

If by "a few people" you mean the entirety of Microsoft's marketing
department and all those who were writing books on Access, then,
yes, I would agree.

To me, it was almost everybody who was singing the DAO-is-dead tune.
It was only a handful of people in the Access newsgroups who seemed
to understand how incredibly stupid that was, and eventually,
Microsoft caught up (though there are still tons of MS support
documents that are skewed towards ADO and its ugly step-children
(e.g., JRO), and most of the Access books in print still don't get
it).

It was painfully obvious to me from the beginning that
ADO-everywhere was a dumb policy. I don't think it took much smarts
to figure that out, though.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

If by "a few people" you mean the entirety of Microsoft's marketing
department and all those who were writing books on Access, then,
yes, I would agree.

To me, it was almost everybody who was singing the DAO-is-dead tune.
It was only a handful of people in the Access newsgroups who seemed
to understand how incredibly stupid that was, and eventually,
Microsoft caught up (though there are still tons of MS support
documents that are skewed towards ADO and its ugly step-children
(e.g., JRO), and most of the Access books in print still don't get
it).

Hmm, good point. <chuckle>

I get a lot of my information from these newsgroups. There are very
few Microsoft events in my area. I haven't purchased an Access book
for a number of years although I've had a few given to me. The last
one I purchased was the A2002 Developers Handbook. I seldom visit the
MS website for information as it's not at my level of expertise.

It was painfully obvious to me from the beginning that
ADO-everywhere was a dumb policy. I don't think it took much smarts
to figure that out, though.

Well, I was simply too lazy to bother. I figured I'd wait until it
was going to bite me in the *ss. Which it didn't.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[RoyVidar]

In actual fact, if's ADO that's dead: it was replaced by ADO.Net

If that had been true, then one should be able to use ADO.Net from
Access, other Office products or for instance from VBScript.

"ADO.NET does not replace ADO for the COM programmer; rather, it
provides the .NET programmer with access to relational data sources,
XML, and application data."
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973217.aspx