I am not aware of rumor,or any hint that JET is going to be thrown out.
Is it time for me to
retire, or will it be no worse than 2.0 --> 95 --> 97 -->
2000 --> XP?
You forgot to add access 2003 to that above list. You should also note that
access 2003 was quite nice, in that it had enhancements made to that JET
engine that is supposed to be dead. Both security, and enhancements to
reduce corruption were made to JET.
Even more incredible, is that for access 2003, the DAO JET reference is back
by DEFAULT! (Yup..you hear me correct!...no more having to set your
application to work with the jet dao references!). This is not the kind move
that says JET is dead, is it?
Further, we got a whack of XML support, and further we even got themed
controls on access 2003 (you can see some screen shots here of the "new"
look you can get with access 2003.
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Atheme/index.htm
Further, the development team (members of who I have met) are hard at
working on the next version of ms-access (and the team is a large as it
every has been..so clearly MS is *finally* putting money back into one of
their great success stories called ms-access). There is no hint that JET is
dead.
Why would MS kill the most successful data engine on the planet (by a long
shot)? Do you actually think that the company is that stupid? (how in the
heck do you think they go to be so successful?).
Of course, I will admit that MS is offering other data engines to us
developers. In fact, you can get a kick butt free data base from MS.
Take a look at this free engine..and if I am right...it will easily support
50 users..with no cost!
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/
Check out the most right link on the above..."sql server express". it is
simply un-believable what you get for free these days. this thing is so far
and beyond what any free database engine has EVER offered. So, with such a
incredible database engine for free, it is not that JET is dead, but us
developers will likely just start to use something that is better then JET.
However, what is stopping you from using a old version of ms-access anyway?
I know people who still use access 97, that is fully 4 versions old, and
goes back to a time when the average pc had 16 megs of ram, and a p90mhz
processor.
There is nothing stopping you from writing code with ms-access version 2.0
(what 1994??). In fact we still frequently get questions here about that
version. There is noting stopping you from writing software using FoxPro
2.6. That is also a dos based "text" system, and is also about 1992.
(I still have clients running FoxPro software from the 1980's on brand
new windows xp boxes. So, why are you worried here?
Microsoft has the best track record in the industry in this regards. You can
still run all that old software. You can even run most of it in windows2000,
which really does not even has dos anymore.
Apple, and good many of the other vendors out there have forced numerous
upgrades upon their users. For example, all of the old applications for the
old Apple Macintosh (such as Mac-paint etc). DO NOT work on the new
platforms. In other words, just about all of the 1980' applications (and
early 90's code) for the Apple Mac do not work anymore. They WERE FORCED to
upgrade. ALL OF MY windows code from the early 1980's still runs fine on the
newest windows box. Microsoft does not have a policy of "breaking", or not
allowing the old code to run. They have the best track record in the
industry by far in this regard.
So, really, I don't see any problem here. Nothing is stopping you from using
the 1992 version of dos based Reflex is there? (I have some clients still
running that)
If you want, you can jump over to Dan Bricklins site, and download the
ORIGINAL spread sheet for the ibm pc. It still works today! Do any of you
remember VisiCalc? It is only a 27k download for a whole spread sheet!.
Simply amazing. By the way, this spreadsheet is from the original 1981
VisiCalc disk, and it still runs on Windows today! (heck, the average GIF on
a web site is larger!).
Just how old of code are you trying to run here? We can't go back before
1981,
since the Pc did not exist. Hence, I can't help you with code before that.
On the other hand, there are good number of Atari, and Apple II sites with
great emulators that let you that lots of code from the 1970's.
Here is the link:
http://www.bricklin.com/visicalc.htm
But, if you want to run access 1.0, or Visual Basic 3.0...or jet 3.5....you
can!
Maybe you want to retitre...but software from 20 years ago still runs fine
on my new box....
You can choose whatever old tools you like, nothing is stopping you...
