VFP VS. ACCESS 1

[dawg]

MY COMPANY IS LOOKING INTO UPGRADING OUR SYSTEM. WE ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING VFP 5.0. WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO GROW AND YET MAINTAIN OR INCREASE SPEED AND RELIABILITY. WE RECENTLY HAD SOME PEOPLE COME IN AND TELL US THAT ACCESS WAS THE WAY TO GO, THAT IT WAS BETTER THAN VFP. WE'VE HAD OTHER PEOPLE TELL US THAT ACCESS WOULD BE A STEP BACKWARDS. COULD ANYONE HELP ME DISCERN WHICH IS CORRECT?

THANKS,
TIM

 

[jonscott8]

WE RECENTLY HAD SOME PEOPLE COME IN AND TELL US THAT ACCESS WAS THE WAY TO GO, THAT IT WAS BETTER THAN VFP.

Please tell me they went on further to explain just why Access is "better" than VFP. More than likely, they were biased to Access and knew very little, if anything, about VFP.

IMO, Access is a power-user tool. It is more mainstream than VFP because it is easier to use.

OTOH, VFP is a data-centric application development tool.(That's why VFP is in the Visual Studio suite and Access is in the Office suite)

Access strengths:
All files are built into one database (the .mdb file).
It is more mainstream and easier to get support/assistance with it.

VFP strengths:
It has the fastest database engine when working with native data.
It has a maximum table size of 2 GB, while Access is 1 GB.

And there are many other points that others may touch on.

 

[TomasDill]

I agree with jonscott8. Access is much more simple database tool, mostly for beginners. So, thous who work with it do not have good enough programmer level to say that something is better than VFP or compare them.
In addition to Jons message:
VFP also fast with non-native databases through ODBC. Once result set queried, you may work with it with all VFP speed. In addition, VFP allows user-defined functions in VFP query. VFP SQL SELECT statement have much more powerful syntax than even MS SQL Server SELECT command.
VFP have certain disadvantages too when working with data. VFP does not have security for database, Access have it. Need to be very careful when programming triggers in VFP.
Mostly programming in VFP is similar to programming in Access, but VFP is more data-driven and flexible. And VFP have much more powerful controls for interfaces, like a grid control.
Bad side of VFP is that it is very hard to learn and teach programming in VFP for new programmers. From my experiense, only 2 from 10 programmers after 2 months of learning and 1 year of working can handle VFP on the level of managing simple applications. So, VFP is a choise only in case when programmers are experiensed enough to make serious applications using VFP. In other words, VFP is not for beginners.

 

[foxdev]

Here is Microsoft's position:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q168/5/49.asp

 

[sdcabq]

Access is limited, does not work well in multiuser mode and is painfully slow. VFP is extremely fast (I have over 300 users on 1 4.5GB database using VFP and average query to display time for a very complex data set is less than 3 seconds). VFP also has a much more robust data base structure whis is not nearly so prone to damage as Access. [sig][/sig]

 

[jpugh]

I would agree with all of the above and add the following. The best way to build a system for both growth and flexibility is to design an n-tier system that could in the future be cut over to a larger scale database like SQL-Server or Oracle.

VFP is a much better platform for designing this type of future looking system than Access.

Note: If the "People" you talked to were serious developers and wanted to use the Access Database, they probably would have suggested a Visual Basis interface with an Access back-end.
[sig][/sig]