MS Access 2010

Great time watching this demo......I'm floored in a few ways but not in the way you might think. I'm an Access developer and have been for almost 10 years......

A few comments and opinions on the "new" Access 2010.....

1) If ever there were a truth about a Microsoft product, it certainly holds true for Office 2007 and beyond....which is, that THIS PRODUCT HAS JUMPED THE SHARK......Microsoft has OVERPRODUCED it.....the ribbon sucks, the new application facelift is virtually unnavigable, and relative to MS Access, you've removed the data window and jacked around all the data filter commands....WTF?

2) MS Access 2007+ is virtually unusable for a developer. It is cumbersome to work in at best. I cannot work in these versions and I REFUSE......I REFUSE to develop a solution in MS Access 2007+ USING MS Access 2007+. For the FORSEEABLE future, I will continue to develop MS Access apps in 2003 and test them on later Office platforms when necessary. If you are going to retard the product with a useless ribbon, could you at least have some sympathy for the f*^&%^ing developers of the product (also known as your LOYAL user base) and provide a user option to return to a "classic version" configuration?

3) Macros have always been a joke (in my opinion). If you are going to develop an Access application for a business, you should be working directly with VBA not macros.....with rare exception the only macro necessary to use in VBA for Access is the AutoExec macro which kick starts the application with the opening of the main form. But in Access 2010 you've REFOCUSED efforts to further dumb down the app by employing all that * interface for macros? It's an overproduced waste of time......

4) It's great that you want to reincarnate MS Access from a WinForm solution to a hybride WinForm+WebBased solution.....I'm ecstatic that Microsoft is not going to deprecate Access from the world at large since quite frankly, it's the only damn product that Microsoft ever TRULY got right.....(you could argue that Front Page was another extraordinary MS product but where is it today?) That's right, Microsoft has shitcanned that app for a clumsy version of VS Web Developer........again, another product that jumped the shark....back to the point....MS Access 2010 has been reincarnated to work seamlessly with SharePoint.....great.....give me an add-in that I can use for MS Access 2003 and I'll use it....otherwise that shitball of an application is useless....

I hate to be so hard on the hard-working efforts made by MS devs who have contributed to this product but, I have to tell you that you are developing this application IN ALL THE WRONG DIRECTIONS......

AS an aside, VISUAL STUDIO devs could learn a few things by employing some of the elegance and simplicity that comprises user navigation and UI in MS Access 2003. Let me see, let me develop an app using VB.Net and try to connect to a database, develop FLEXIBLE reporting and then hand it off to the user.....let me do the SAME thing in MS Access 2003 and the entire effort is about 70% less work.....VS 2008 database connections include *ing adapters, binding sources, datasets, table adapters, etc.

Let me SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY *ING LUNGS for some functionality pieces in MS Access that developers around the world are looking for......it's another waste of keystrokes here though because no one at MICROSOFT IS LISTENING....but if this rant doesn't get canned from the Channel 9 site at least it will show some semblance of freedom of expression here as well as openness to L I S T E N.

SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR MS ACCESS FUNCTIONALITY THAT THE ACCESS DEVELOPER WORLD REALLY WANTS:::::::

1) Ability to convert mdb or accdb into EXECUTABLES

2) Ability to encrypt and/or lock tables separately or all of them simultaneously

3) INCREASED SELECTION OF CONTROLS FOR MS ACCESS DEVELOPMENT

4) Increased file capacity from 2GB to say 100GB

5) Better documentation tools integrated into the VBA Editor (Ex: ability to export COLORIZED VBA code documents)

6) More datatypes added to enrich what can be stored in Access tables

7) Better (MUCH BETTER) graphing capabilities for charting data

8) Increased VBA language capabilities that parallel VB.Net

There are many more needed improvements but the aforementioned is a start.

Now, MS decision makers, go back to your development shacks and forget these opinions were ever expressed...