• What’s Your Response to Approach vs Access

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    #357766

    Greetings All,

    What’s your response to someone who wants to use Approach over Access? I’m seriously looking for an answer here, not a bashing session of Lotus or Microsoft. Have you run into end users who bought into the blurb advertised by Lotus, something to the effect of having a database up and running minutes after opening the box Approach came in.

    After using dBase, FoxPro, Paradox, Access, Alpha Four, and Approach – I find the fact that Approach is pretty much a front end to Paradox or dBase files interesting, while I find the performance and features of Approach disgusting.

    I have found Access’ built-in features can often be made to run circles around many of the other PC databases on the market. Most of the “experts” added to Paradox turned out to be clones of Access’ control wizards.

    J/W

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    • #532178

      I think it depends on what they want to use it for. It is definitely a desktop database and not really built for heavy duty use.

      I programmed dBase for years before Access was introduced, and I’ve worked with Paradox for Windows, FileMaker Pro and even Approach and I have a nodding acquaintance with Visual FoxPro and AlphaFour. I agree that Access is my product of choice, and I’ve been using it literally since the day it was first released in 1992.

      I found Approach to be targeted toward end users who want to build what looks like a database and are used to spreadsheet logic, much the same as FileMaker. It would be fine if all someone wants to do is just store some information and build some pretty forms for their own use. It is definitely not a candidate for building enterprise or departmental databases or front ends. I found that it lacked the features needed in a production database application, and I have never liked the Borlund query grid, which drove me crazy in Paradox.

      As with Access, you can easily build very bad database designs very quickly in Approach. The difference is that I found it hard to build good database designs in Approach, even with a thorough understanding of the principles involved and no matter how much time I spent on it.

      I would not recommend it to anyone who was serious about building a database and maintaining it over time, and I definitely would decline to support the results if they insisted.

    • #532212

      I don’t know anything about Approach, so I can’t compare. However, I do have some general comments.

      Regardless of what database product your are talking about, any hype from the manufacturer about “getting a database up and running in a short time” is geared mostly to the casual user who will probably use a wizard to create pretty much a 1-table database (name and address, etc.). This is a far cry from a developer using the product. And I believe that no product can make the casual user into a developer unless that person has some knowledge of relational database theory.

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