Thread

1. jordand · 1790113347 · focus · HN ↗

   All these years later, Microsoft Access is still alive and kicking, and just three years ago, the 32bit version got Large Address Aware (LAA) support! Technically my very first software job was writing VBA in Microsoft Access for a few weeks and they're probably still running it (there's no drop in replacement for it or cheap way to migrate away)

   1. post-it · 1790113601 · focus · HN ↗

      Access is so good. I can't believe there's no universal equivalent for Linux and Mac. There are dozens of times when I've used a spreadsheet when a file-based database would have been better.

      1. nullsmack · 1790113758 · focus · HN ↗

         I'm shocked in general at the lack of open source Rapid Application Development software.

         1. progmetaldev · 1790115648 · focus · HN ↗

            I think Microsoft coming out with XAML/WPF created too much complexity for most of the developers that were working with WinForms. Although the code had better separation from the interface, it also took quite a bit more effort to get an application up and running quickly. They took the "R" out of RAD, and then kind of put both WinForms and WPF on life support, while continuing to tout cross-platform on .NET Core without a first-party GUI platform. Now it just looks like Azure was always going to be the solution, to tie users into a platform they don't fully control.

            1. jordand · 1790121558 · focus · HN ↗

               I ran into all of this with the first few years of my career. Even after years, MAUI has struggled to gain traction and Avalonia has grown and is far more the de-facto choice for .NET cross-platform GUI. Both work collegues and myself have ran into XAML/WPF Styling horrors where it's all one giant aggregation/inheritance nightmare generated by Blend (and done by someone that didn't quite know what they were doing)
            2. jasomill · 1790213817 · focus · HN ↗

               It always seemed to me that a lack of gentle “WPF for Windows Forms developers” documentation was more of a problem here than WPF itself, which no more enforces the separation of presentation and execution than Windows Forms does, it just gives you more and higher-level options for how code interacts with the layout.

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