I rarely link to a JET engine when using MSAccess. If I use local tables then it is for temporary storage only.
However where I find MS Access most useful is for joining together different DB Engines For example (and if I am contracting I rarely have a say over the environments) A customer wants to create some stats using the sales system, stock system, and MYOB financial package. However the Sales system is MSSQL, the Stock system is Oracle, and MyOB is.. well MyOB, plus throw in MySQL and a few others then you can be looking at a technical nightmare. Yes I can do dumps and export/import into a standard format however with MS Access I can LINK to the separate databases and then do the necessary joins/summations etc within MS Access. Its slower however it does give a level DB playing field when one needs to join together a lot of data. Another good thing about MS Access is that it can be easy to teach a non DBA or programmer to use. For example I can create a low level DB user who only has read access. Link to the DB using MS Access and this user, and I can give this to a manager who can have HOURS of fun crunching stats... leaving the programmer to do more productive tasks. Likewise doing reports. With the built in wizards MS Access makes it easy for a non programmer to whip up a batch of reports If MS Access good for large scale development - maybe not, and yes - there can be issues re recrd locking.. But as a tool for data crunching for the inexperienced or non developers it can be invaluable. Just my thoughts on the subject. ******************************************************************** David J. Boccabella Proprietor Anubis Systems Phone: 0433 808 525 Fax: 3200 0085 Email: [email protected] This e-mail and it's contents is confidential to Anubis Systems. This e-mail, any attachments, or any part of can not be reproduced without the express written permission of Anubis Systems ********************************************************************
