Next step: Visual Studio?

[el zorro]

What a long strange trip... long ago, actually it was onluy 2003, but it
seems like ages ago... I wrote an Access application, with the front end on
the user workstations and BE tables on a server. It worked great initially,
but data volume and concurrent user activity increased dramatically. The
Access mdb became sluggish and crash prone, so I converted it to an adp/SQL
Server setup. That's where I'm at now, and it works fine.

All of this has taken me to my programming limits, but now it has been
suggested that I take the thing completely out of Access so that it functions
as a standalone application (i.e., can be used by someone without Access
installed on their computer). I have also read that adp may be on its
deathbed, so it's probably a good idea to migrate to something else.

Well, I'm not sure how to do that. I'm thinking the Views and Tables now on
the SQL Server are good, so I just need to rewrite the adp Forms and Reports,
in Visual Basic or whatever, and hook them up to the Server.

Any suggestions? I've been looking into Visual Studio, but I'm not sure.
Would that provide me with a development environment that I can understand,
given that my experience has been LIMITED to the Access design interface so
far? I can write some VB code (as instructions triggered by an "event") and
I'm good with the Access design interface for Forms and Reports.

Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Paul Shapiro]

If your adp is working well, and has all the features you need, it seems a
lot of work to recreate the application in VB.Net. However, if conversion
has been dictated, then I think Visual Studio is a very nice application
development environment. There will be lots of learning, and you should
allow PLENTY of time, but if you learned Access development I don't see why
you couldn't learn Visual Studio.

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:31:04 -0800, el zorro

I am one of those people who thinks ADP is treated as a stepchild. At
the upcoming MVP Summit the Access team will get an earful from me
about this. Nevertheless, it's hard to justify rewriting what works.
The A2007 runtime is free, so the concern that you'd have to have
Access on your machine is totally gone (if it wasn't already; there
has been a runtime for each version of Access that I can remember).

If you rewrite indeed you could keep most if not all of the database
design. But the learning curve to .NET programming is VERY STEEP. In
my mind it takes a year before you're proficient enough to rewrite a
serious business application. This should NOT be your first project.

-Tom.
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Michael Cole]

What a long strange trip... long ago, actually it was onluy 2003, but
it seems like ages ago... I wrote an Access application, with the
front end on the user workstations and BE tables on a server. It
worked great initially, but data volume and concurrent user activity
increased dramatically. The Access mdb became sluggish and crash
prone, so I converted it to an adp/SQL Server setup. That's where I'm
at now, and it works fine.

All of this has taken me to my programming limits, but now it has been
suggested that I take the thing completely out of Access so that it
functions as a standalone application (i.e., can be used by someone
without Access installed on their computer). I have also read that
adp may be on its deathbed, so it's probably a good idea to migrate
to something else.

Well, I'm not sure how to do that. I'm thinking the Views and Tables
now on the SQL Server are good, so I just need to rewrite the adp
Forms and Reports, in Visual Basic or whatever, and hook them up to
the Server.

Any suggestions? I've been looking into Visual Studio, but I'm not
sure. Would that provide me with a development environment that I can
understand, given that my experience has been LIMITED to the Access
design interface so far? I can write some VB code (as instructions
triggered by an "event") and I'm good with the Access design
interface for Forms and Reports.

Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks!

Well a lot of it depends on what version of Visual Studio (which BTW is a
development package, not a language) you are talking about.

The easiest step is to get a copy of VB Classic (VB6) and use that. As it
is not produced any more, you may neeed to hunt around to find a copy - some
of the on-line auction sites occasionally feature it. Ignore all the
nay-sayers who will immediately jump on you for using it - it still works.

As others have mentioned, the dotNet languages are a completely different
beast, and there is little to no correlation between VBA Access and VB.Net.
Using any dotNet language is essentially a complete rewrite.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I am one of those people who thinks ADP is treated as a stepchild. At
the upcoming MVP Summit the Access team will get an earful from me
about this.

You can give them an earful however you very likely won't get very
far.

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/

 

[Skip]

Pardon my ignorance, but how are you using the Access application as a front
end?

Reason I ask, is that I create a 'source' copy of the application (all
tables being on SQL Server), then when users launch it, they actually launch
a script which copies the 'source' to their local temp folder, and launches
the Access app from there. This allows me to work on the 'source' without
interference and seems to prevent performance issues. Of course, I am
talking about a small number of users (less than 20) so maybe that is why it
works for me.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

It's a very good idea to work against a local copy of the database and is
probably the solution that will be the most widely used in the future.

MS is now offering some kits for helping solving the problems of
synchronising the data between the local and the remote databases: the
Microsoft Sync Framework:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sync/default.aspx

Do not confuse Syncing with Replication. While they can be seen as
achieving the same goal, there are two entirely different technologies and
the Sync Framework has been developped specifically to overcome many of the
problems associated with using Replication over the WAN (Wide Area Network)
instead of a local LAN.

The Sync Framewok will also be compatible with the Microsoft Azure Platform;
to do computing and database access over a cloud (ie., without a central
master database).

Personally, I didn't have the time to test these with an Access
applications.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

While you have time before you would be the perfect moment to start learning
Visual Studio.NET. Don't wait until the last moment; when the boss will
walk into your office and say that he want the Access application converted
to a standalone application using .NET.

Of course, you should forget about Visual Studio 6. As it's no longer sold
by MS, it's now officially dead - excerpt for the support of legacy
applications - and you should not loose any time to dead technology. Also,
there are no relation at all between VS6 and VS.NET when it comes to data
access and the .NET Framework. While VS.NET still offer support for C, C++
and MFC, learning Visual Basic 6 and ADO will give you nothing for
understanding C#, VB.NET, ADO.NET and ASP.NET.

Where there are still a lot of applications done with Access and the like,
the biggest part of today software development on the Windows platform is
now done with .NET; so you know where your future is.

ADP is not really on its deathbed because it will be probably integrated
into a next version of Access - there is no way that MS will go back in its
support of a Read/Write passthrough query; however, in comparaison to .NET,
Access is a pretty much limited development platform.

 

[el zorro]

You comments have all been very helpful. Thank you.

I had already gotten Visual Studio 2008 before I read the recommendation for
Visual Studio.NET. I havent had time to even look at it yet, but should I
swap it for .NET?

 

[Paul Shapiro]

Visual Studio 2008 is Visual Studio.Net. VS 2008 is the current version, so
you got the right thing. You can check the features in each edition on
Microsoft's website. I would describe Visual Studio as requiring
significantly more programming than a simple Access application. If you're
already building serious Access applications, with thousands of lines of
code, then VS might seem somewhat comparable. If you want to try Visual
Studio without purchasing, there are free Express editions which almost
certainly include enough features for your learning and exploring.

 

[Michael Cole]

You comments have all been very helpful. Thank you.

I had already gotten Visual Studio 2008 before I read the
recommendation for Visual Studio.NET. I havent had time to even look
at it yet, but should I swap it for .NET?

It is .NET.