Even with otherwise seemingly easy-to-use web-based improvements to Excel that my employer has like smartsheet... these don't seem to let you do any sort of super basic many-to-one relationships (maybe with some expensive ad on package? dunno... and smartsheet has plastered their site with a bunch of 101 intro to databases SEO spam that explain what different types of relationships are rather than how to fucking build them with smartsheet)
Nothing.
Access is(was) in fact a worse alternative to Fox:
- Much worse DB engine, and that is saying a lot (FoxPro db can and get corrupted. A typical functionality that was added to any fox codebase was a utility to fix it)
- MUCH MUCH worse programming language (VB) that is neither good as-is, much less as a data-programing language.
Fox/dbase is the only data-oriented language that was relatively popular and fit for the use-case.
This is by a mile the main point: Is a desert looking for languages that are made for business app/data oriented programing (and much harder looking for something not weird).
The main options: Fox/dBase/Informix(? not remember), kdb+, Cobol, SQL(when extended as store procedure lang with loops and that)
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This point is big. Having a good form builder (that is already rare) is not enough to be a real contender for this space. You need a language where making queries is truly nice.
In short, you need a language that is `LINQ/Relational` as first-class end-to-end.
- If this lang needs an ORM: FAIL.
- If this lang needs to compose strings to make a query: FAIL.
- If exist "impedance mismatch" between data manipulation/queries and the rest of the lang: FAIL.
- It should also support super-advanced types like date, decimal, currency and ideally dimensional units. Ideally algebraic types as today.
- It should have a version of Rust `serde, Into/From` traits, for easy conversion between data + formats.
- It should look "normal" like python/swift with `LINQ` queries.
This is the lang I trying to build: https://tablam.org
and thats not a bad thing per se
Although as other said on this thread, the real killer feature would be a form builder as in foxpro etc. It can be somewhat primitive, as long as it's easy to build and extend. Ideally the forms should be web based.
But I try to get a good companion for it, so it get good synergy.
It's a real shame Access died, now there's no path from a spreadsheet to something more sensible.
Although it has certainly died in terms of mindshare, it's officially still supported for PC (not Mac):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access
I actually have it installed right now, because it comes with Microsoft 365 Family, which I have on the Windows PC on which I'm typing this comment. I haven't used the modern version of it, though.
If your application grows into the need for concurrent writes, then it will be time for another database.
There are basic SQLite GUIs, but they have no reporting functionality and no customizable forms.
A cross platform Access-like front-end that used sqlite as the data storage engine would conqueror large parts the territory.
There's a few other similar ones out there too like Baserow [2], Appsmith [3] and nocodb [4].
Finally, if you wanted a step up, then I guess supabase [5] would be the next one up but its more like "I just want to write front end and have auth, database, API and storage taken care of for me"
But none of these really give you that all-in-one database and front-end via files like Access did and its a damn shame. Yeah I know Access lead to some god-awful applications, but honestly the people complaining about shadow IT don't realize that its inevitable if IT isn't fixing people's problems. You just need to be clear that if the business unit goes down that path, they're on their own. So if the guy who built your crazy Excel VBA app is gone, don't expect that to be picked up by others just because its super important. But, if it is in fact that important, then its probably a prime candidate for actual development work, so the duct-taped together things do end up being sort of testbeds for whats actually important.
The whole lowcode-nocode shtick is a bit oversold, but one good aspect of it is that if you allow for an easy onboarding sandbox for the type of person who would otherwise make an Excel VBA app, at least some of these platforms have sandboxes with guardrails and other compliance stuff you can apply.
[1] https://budibase.com/ [2] https://baserow.io/ [3] https://www.appsmith.com/ [4] https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb [5] https://supabase.com/
It's been installed on every corp workstation I've had and it's never been useful. In my experience either Excel can do it or you need a real programming language/database.
Between Excel (with no functional API to use for storage) and a "real database" (your users now need to ask IT to deploy SQLServer) was a use case of app just needs to store persistent data for a single user.
Those business apps made "by that one person" that allowed few other to input data concurrently (back then no google sheets / shared Excel... which are horrible and have no user defined GUI) and then to make reports.
Also data manipulation when it didnt fit Excel (I know access has 2gb limit, but it was a lot).
Through ODBC, you could connect to pretty much any database around. I think Office 2000 Professional was one of the best products Microsoft ever produced, it's all downhill since then.
Also, things went downhill when they got rid of full menus and introduced the accursed "ribbon".
Why is this zip code a phone number? It’s not the users fault, your using the wrong tool.
It's definetely not great by todays standards when it comes to backups and what not, but it was really fantastic at the time.
No other document designer that I'm aware of allows for runtime integration of variables into the layout/presentation.
This is just unbelievably /common/.
I've never used Access so apologies if you're looking for more than a GUI-driven interface to the DB.
So, it's a substitute in terms of affordability. But absolutely not in terms of "rapid GUI application development" for the non-programmer.
c) https://github.com/twinbasic/twinbasic
Once it gets out of beta.