"David W. Fenton" wrote in message
36.82...
=?Utf-8?B?YnJpYW5r?= wrote in
:

I have inherited an A2007 adb with a connection to SS2K5. I have
recently begun trying to follow the various VBA code compiled by
four different consultants which is a bit of a challenge in
itself. Since my company's needs have changed over the past
months I feel that it would be cost effective to simply create a
new db from scratch. However, I am not sure of the advantages of
ADP or simply sticking with ACCDB. I would appreciate feedback on
this scenario.

For what it's worth, Microsoft has been deprecating ADPs in favor of
MDB/ODBC for the last several years. This is likely to change with
the next version of Access (i.e., the version *after* 2010) because
the Access team has been doing a special project in trying to seek
out users of SQL Server and make Access work better with it. So, I'd
expect ADPs to get new life in Access 15 (ADPs have been basically
ignored in A2007 and A2010, which should tell you something about
how well-implemented they were).

ODBC really is old and creaky, and I really wish ODBC2 would be
created and incorporate the best aspects of ADO. That wouldn't be
.NET-compliant, but it would cover a whole host of issues that come
with using ODBC access to modern databases.

For now, I would not contemplate using an ADP for any purpose. If
the Access team does as stellar a job on improving ADPs as they have
with the A2010 Sharepoint integration, it should be a big hit, and
then become the de facto best choice for development against SQL
Server back ends.

The main flaw for me with that, though, is that it's not back-end
agnostic, which is something I consider important. I'd love to have
the capabilities of an ADP when connecting to MySQL, for instance.
But that would be MS giving up a certain amount of proprietary
advantage. On the other hand, MS has done that with real browser
agnosticism with Sharepoint 2010, so it's possible. But I wouldn't
hold my breath on that one!

There may be something "like" an ADP, but ADPs rely on OLEdb and the current
access mechanisms in "real development" (the bigots name for Dot Net stuff)
use something other than OLEdb.

I've worked in very few shops where they had a server back end, in which the
DBA would allow "mere developers" to do design-side work on "the DBA's
server". Yes, they had a very proprietary attitude. No, it wasn't likely to
change.

With small clients, you probably won't face that problem... I suspect that
the fact that Microsoft targets enterprise customers may have something to
do with their "neglect" of ADPs... they found out that many of the wonderful
features they had included were simply prohibited to developers in their
target audience.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP