R
Robert Morley
That sounds like something Bush would say.
Rob
Rob
PMK said:On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 09:42:06 +0100, "Baz"
That won't work with subforms, and with multiple subforms the coding
to deal with all the various errors a user could make in any of
multiple fields which will cause the record to save is extremely
difficult, time consuming and gives a less satisfying result than
unbound forms. I do admit to a fondness for unbound forms in general,
as I have found it is easier to create idiot proof forms that way.
In Access, local temporary tables. With ADP it can get tricky.
Sometimes SQL temp tables, sometimes permanent tables that simply hold
the subform info on a temporary basis until it gets saved, or a
combination of both.
I appreciate your other comments and thoughts.
Peter
(PeteCresswell) said:Per Jim Rand:
A few years back I was flirting with .NET.
But then I asked myself "What do I deliver to my clients that
makes me different from 10,000 highly-skilled, really-smart,
energetic people in Bangalore?"
I came up with three things:
------------------------------------------------------------
1) Really-RAD Development. I can turn on a dime and deliver
faster than any IT shop - anywhere.
My experience developing the same app in VB6 vs MS Access led
me to think that VB took three times the man hours.
Others have opined 5 or 6.
I don't see this as a dollar thing - because an offshore
shop might bill ten times the hours, but at only a twentieth
of the rate..... but it relates to the "turn on a dime" and
short delivery time aspects.
2) Minimal User Impact: The people I serve tend to be in
highly-competitive positions where they're already being
stretched to the max. They live and die by numbers
and if they falter, they're history.
Working with IT means they have to devote significant
man hours to filling out specs and meeting with programmer/
analysts - as opposed to just saying "Hey Pete.. how about..."
-------------------------------------------------------------
Questions - now that you're up to speed with .NET:
-------------------------------------------------------------
1) Do you feel that you can make midstream changes in .NET as
quickly as you could using MS Access?
2) What do you think your own ratio of MS Access man hours to
VB.NET man hours on the same application would be?
Fred Boer said:...NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is
surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are
fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are
fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion
to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons....
So... How about: "Amongst my reasons are such diverse elemets as..." <g>
Cheers!
Fred Boer
Ohhhhh I begin to see where you are coming from. You're talking about
entering records in both a main form and a subform as a single logical
transaction. Not a requirement I have often encountered, although I have
needed to do it once or twice. Would be interesting to hear more about your
circumstances.
Presumably when you use local tables in an mdb, temporary tables in SQL
Server or whatever, you are binding forms to them? Otherwise why use tables
at all as your "temporary" repository?
- All sorts of web applications. MS Access app (*.mdb/*.accdb/*.adp) is
typical desktop client application. You cannot create web application with
it, either client side or server side.
Do not mention Access DAP, it is useless.
PMK said:Do you mean ADP? If so, sorry but that statement is not only wrong,
it's silly.If you want to defend it, then how about some facts and not
just a 'don't mention it'?
It's not useless to my clients and one in particular that has been
very dependent on an ADP I did for them seven years ago that has given
them a huge competitive edge on their competition. If that app stops
working, then they stop working and neither has happened other than
from hardware failures.
Now DAP, whatever that is, may indeed be useless but you have to tell
us what is is first. ;-).
Peter
PMK said:I'm not sure how you could avoid it other than (off the top of my
head) putting the main form data onto a subform also. Anyway, in my
situation users enter main form data and then go on to enter subform
data. That is in a perfect world. They may try to enter the subform
data first which sets off an unhappy chain of events in bound forms.
Yes these (sub)forms are bound also, but not to the 'permanent' tables
so nothing is entered into the db until the operator (and my
validation code) has clearly indicated that the data is cleared to be
processed. BTW, deletes are often not treated casually and may only
allowed by certain operators and even then tracked so the
unintentional saving of a record is not a trivial event.
I may also deal with this in a variety of other ways, including hiding
subforms until essential data is entered. Sometimes that works well -
sometimes not. These strategies can't be divorced from the real world
situation. I mean you have to put yourself in the data entry person's
shoes and tailor the form to their skills, needs and working patterns
and also anticipate the kind of mistakes they will probably make and
figure out the best way to recover from them.
Maybe it is just a difference in style. I did not look for ways to
avoid this. It (unbound forms) seemed the best way of the various
alternatives to make the users the most productive and avoid data
entry errors and frustrations, particularly as my users are mostly
not native English speakers nor particularly computer savvy
-suggesting using the ESC key to reverse a data entry would just be a
waste of time as would be suggesting using the built in Access menus,
which I do not expose to them. I don't regret it - the system works
well, is easy for them, and in fact data entry errors and service
calls were few (I am thinking of the app with the heaviest use of
unbound forms).
Yes, the subforms are always bound to temporary tables - either Access
or MS SQL temp tables or tables used to store the data temporarily
until it is written to the main tables. The main form may or may not
be. I've also tried binding to recordsets with mixed results. For me,
an added advantage of using tables over code is it is easier that way
for me to go back a year or two or three later and quickly refresh
myself as to what the logic in that part of the application is.
I find all the comments about my approach being the worst of two
worlds interesting.
In fact, other than perhaps a slicker look using VB, I can't see how
the apps could be better! And with the last and most complex one I had
a lot of time to mull over that, as I worked as I.T. Admin for that
client for 5 years after creating the app, did some tweaking on it in
that time, but never had cause to question the underlying
construction, including form strategies.
Do you mean ADP? If so, sorry but that statement is not only wrong,
it's silly.If you want to defend it, then how about some facts and not
just a 'don't mention it'?
An HTML form produced from Access. The fact that you've never heard of them is
a pretty good indicator of how useful they are.
2) What do you think your own ratio of MS Access man hours to
VB.NET man hours on the same application would be?
Access usually requires the user to have an valid access user licence
(Office etc) and each client therefore has some cost. VS.net clients are
free once they are developed.