C
Coddington, Paul
I guess that it's fitting that the announcement is a quiet little post in a
newsgroup, considering that the omission of this critical feature was
originally announced in an obscure article hidden deep in MSDN. I would
have expected this to appear on the Office Updates site though, as this is a
significant update for Access 2003, perhaps more significant than SP1 itself
(I say perhaps, but I feel almost certain that it is).
I say this, because up until now, Access 2003 has not been a viable product
for serious development projects, as without the Source Code Control,
developing and debugging Access databases is like the proverbial herding of
cats. Not impossible, but exceedingly difficult and inefficient, with
uncertain results.
When you consider that the best practice for managing Access databases
within a small team is to use SourceSafe for version control, group
development, and to share multiple reusable classes, modules, and forms
between projects, it is hard to imagine life without the Source Code
Control. In fact, it would not have been possible to upgrade some
environments to Office 2003, as this would have rendered them unmanageable.
Even single developers working alone on a single project can benefit from
this add-in, through being able to retrace their steps, protect their
project against accidental change (such as commenting out code for debugging
purposes and then forgetting to uncomment it) and instantly repair and
restore an entire project with *complete assurance* when struck by the
all-too-frequent spontaneous corruptions that occur while debugging and
modifying code 'live' as it runs.
Of course, once the step is taken to share reusable code between multiple
projects, quality of product improves as more time is available for
designing and writing good code rather than chasing problems, debugging
multiple instances of similar or identical code, or reinventing the wheel.
The sky's the limit here, providing one is willing to develop the design
skills required to make it happen.
Another benefit is the ability to search within the entire project,
including queries, macros, and the properties of forms and controls. For
example, if you are about to upgrade, say, 40 old Access databases to the
latest version, you can load all 40 of them into SourceSafe and conduct a
serious of searches for deprecated code that is no longer supported and
pinpoint every instance of its use within all databases in minutes.
Similarly, renaming fields, tables, and other objects can be done
painlessly, because every reference can be traced with ease for all objects.
I could discuss the benefits in more detail (and may do so at a later date
when I get a website up and running), but I hope that those who haven't yet
discovered the benefits of SourceSafe integration will be encouraged by
these comments to adopt it, as everyone I have introduced SourceSafe
integration to has remarked "I don't know how we lived without it", or words
to that effect.
Of course, the benefits are greater for those producing complex systems
using object-oriented principles and more secure and efficient data
manipulation techniques (eg: ADO-based callback functions for list controls
with stored procedures and views based in Oracle or SQL Server rather than
linked tables) than they would be for those producing small systems
consisting of a few simple macros and a couple of Jet-based tables. Even
so, there are clear benefits at each end of the spectrum, especially as many
'low-end' systems quickly become complex and unmanageable with time.
In closing, I would like to thank Microsoft for listening to those of us who
lobbied long and hard to have this feature restored.
Just don't do it again, OK? (;-P)
PAUL CODDINGTON
(e-mail address removed)
newsgroup, considering that the omission of this critical feature was
originally announced in an obscure article hidden deep in MSDN. I would
have expected this to appear on the Office Updates site though, as this is a
significant update for Access 2003, perhaps more significant than SP1 itself
(I say perhaps, but I feel almost certain that it is).
I say this, because up until now, Access 2003 has not been a viable product
for serious development projects, as without the Source Code Control,
developing and debugging Access databases is like the proverbial herding of
cats. Not impossible, but exceedingly difficult and inefficient, with
uncertain results.
When you consider that the best practice for managing Access databases
within a small team is to use SourceSafe for version control, group
development, and to share multiple reusable classes, modules, and forms
between projects, it is hard to imagine life without the Source Code
Control. In fact, it would not have been possible to upgrade some
environments to Office 2003, as this would have rendered them unmanageable.
Even single developers working alone on a single project can benefit from
this add-in, through being able to retrace their steps, protect their
project against accidental change (such as commenting out code for debugging
purposes and then forgetting to uncomment it) and instantly repair and
restore an entire project with *complete assurance* when struck by the
all-too-frequent spontaneous corruptions that occur while debugging and
modifying code 'live' as it runs.
Of course, once the step is taken to share reusable code between multiple
projects, quality of product improves as more time is available for
designing and writing good code rather than chasing problems, debugging
multiple instances of similar or identical code, or reinventing the wheel.
The sky's the limit here, providing one is willing to develop the design
skills required to make it happen.
Another benefit is the ability to search within the entire project,
including queries, macros, and the properties of forms and controls. For
example, if you are about to upgrade, say, 40 old Access databases to the
latest version, you can load all 40 of them into SourceSafe and conduct a
serious of searches for deprecated code that is no longer supported and
pinpoint every instance of its use within all databases in minutes.
Similarly, renaming fields, tables, and other objects can be done
painlessly, because every reference can be traced with ease for all objects.
I could discuss the benefits in more detail (and may do so at a later date
when I get a website up and running), but I hope that those who haven't yet
discovered the benefits of SourceSafe integration will be encouraged by
these comments to adopt it, as everyone I have introduced SourceSafe
integration to has remarked "I don't know how we lived without it", or words
to that effect.
Of course, the benefits are greater for those producing complex systems
using object-oriented principles and more secure and efficient data
manipulation techniques (eg: ADO-based callback functions for list controls
with stored procedures and views based in Oracle or SQL Server rather than
linked tables) than they would be for those producing small systems
consisting of a few simple macros and a couple of Jet-based tables. Even
so, there are clear benefits at each end of the spectrum, especially as many
'low-end' systems quickly become complex and unmanageable with time.
In closing, I would like to thank Microsoft for listening to those of us who
lobbied long and hard to have this feature restored.
Just don't do it again, OK? (;-P)
PAUL CODDINGTON
(e-mail address removed)
Troubled said: