VB Programing support Access Database Microsoft Office VB.Net & SQL Server nev@NevVB.com.au Sydney, Australia (612) 9453-0456 Contact Details 23/02/2012
In this article, the strategies of Microsoft are discussed – where Microsoft is heading, and what the implications are for Corporate system development. Visual Basic.Net is now 11 years old. The .Net technology has been used in all Microsoft Operating systems starting with the advent of Vista. A whole generation of programmers know nothing but VB.Net. VB6 and Access database programmers are now a dying breed. For many years, no new project has been initiated using VB6. Similarly, very few if any Corporate database systems have been created over the last few years using Microsoft Access. Yet, due to the sheer weight of existing Microsoft Access systems, support and maintenance will be needed for a long, long time.
SQL Server is now the preferred database of choice. But with multiple users, SQL Server can be expensive - but mitigated by the cost of Microsoft Access (and newer versions) for each User. The SQL Server Express version is free, and will gradually replace Access Back-End databases. Of course SQL Server Express does not have the capabilities of the full version and it will have performance issues using only one CPU.
SQL Server Express will become prevalent in future for small start-up systems.
There will continue to be further versions of Microsoft Access. But the changes will be minimal, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) will not be enhanced. It is extremely unlikely that a .Net version of Visual Basic will ever be developed for Microsoft Access.
Even Microsoft Office 365 on the Web does not include any Access database templates.
The Front-End to any database is being created more and more using Visual Basic.Net. VB.Net has come a long way over the last 11 years. It started off being crude, complicated, full of bugs and inefficient – but conceptually brilliant with enormous potential.
Today that potential has become reality – VB.Net is utterly superb. Yes, it can be complex, but with a few Library procedures, becomes simplicity itself. VB.Net today provides a vehicle for high productivity, low maintenance and good performance.
At one time, the creation of a Visual Basic Front-End was thought to take longer than using an Access database with a Wizard. This may still be true of systems with utterly simplistic requirements. But, for full-blown applications, a VB.Net Front-End application can be created just as fast, if not faster, than with Microsoft Access.
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch is a development tool that allows business applications to be built easily, using SQL Server Express as the Back-End database. VB.Net can be used for business logic.
LightSwitch has:
LightSwitch will soon replace Microsoft Access as the vehicle for simple system design.