Comparison of OpenOffice Base to Microsoft Access ?

[croy]

I'd love to hear about the experiences of those who have
used both OpenOffice Base and Microsoft Access.

I'm somewhat familiar with MS Access, but have never tried
Base.

For an MS Access user, is there any chance of warming up to
Base?

The reason for my interest is the limited / expensive
availability of MS Access.

[Ben Finney]

Post by croy
I'm somewhat familiar with MS Access, but have never tried
Base.

My experience with the two is limited to several years ago, teaching a
former MS Access user.

Post by croy
For an MS Access user, is there any chance of warming up to
Base?

Yes, they are very similar overall; the Base user interface seems
deliberately modelled to be familiar to MS Access users.

Post by croy
The reason for my interest is the limited / expensive availability of
MS Access.

You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with free-software
and robust DBMSen.

Good hunting.

[croy]

On Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:12:51 +1100, Ben Finney

Post by Ben Finney

Post by croy
I'm somewhat familiar with MS Access, but have never tried
Base.

My experience with the two is limited to several years ago, teaching a
former MS Access user.

Post by croy
For an MS Access user, is there any chance of warming up to
Base?

Yes, they are very similar overall; the Base user interface seems
deliberately modelled to be familiar to MS Access users.

Post by croy
The reason for my interest is the limited / expensive availability of
MS Access.

You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with free-software
and robust DBMSen.

Thanks Ben.

Does Base have any built-in ability to create stand-alone
applications?

[Ben Finney]

Post by croy
Does Base have any built-in ability to create stand-alone
applications?

I don't know, we didn't try that.

You might find more knowledgeable answers on the forums specifically for
OpenOffice.org Base discussions
<URL:http://dba.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectMailingListList>.

[David Segall]

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with free-software
and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver just
as OpenOffice Base can be used with any database that has a JDBC
driver. The open source Firebird, Ingres and PostgreSQL RDBMSs all
provide ODBC drivers. Not even Microsoft recommend using the database
that comes with Access.

[David Segall]

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with free-software
and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver just
as OpenOffice Base can be used with any database that has a JDBC
driver. The open source Firebird, Ingres and PostgreSQL RDBMSs all
provide ODBC drivers. Not even Microsoft recommend using the database
that comes with Access.

[Ben Finney]

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with
free-software and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver

[…]

ODBC is a far cry from “working smoothly with” the database server.

[David Segall]

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with
free-software and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver

[…]
ODBC is a far cry from “working smoothly with” the database server.

Why is ODBC significantly worse than JDBC?

[David Segall]

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with
free-software and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver

[…]
ODBC is a far cry from “working smoothly with” the database server.

Why is ODBC significantly worse than JDBC?

[Jasen Betts]

Post by David Segall

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with
free-software and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver

ODBC is a far cry from “working smoothly with” the database server.

Why is ODBC significantly worse than JDBC?

I don't think that claim was ever made, ODBC seems to be a one size
fits Microsoft solution.

I haven't looked at JDBC, hopefully it's not designed around
compatibility with a single vendor.

[Robert Klemme]

Post by Jasen Betts

Post by David Segall

Post by Ben Finney
You'll also get the big advantage of working smoothly with
free-software and robust DBMSen.

MS Access can be used with any database that has an ODBC driver

ODBC is a far cry from “working smoothly with” the database server.

Why is ODBC significantly worse than JDBC?

I don't think that claim was ever made, ODBC seems to be a one size
fits Microsoft solution.
I haven't looked at JDBC, hopefully it's not designed around
compatibility with a single vendor.

It isn't. But it has flaws of its own. What I find most annoying is
that Sun did not bother to provide different exception classes to signal
certain error classes cleanly (connection related errors, SQL syntax
errors, locking errors etc.). Also, not all vendors implement the meta
data API properly - but that's more an issue of driver implementations
than of JDBC.

Kind regards

robert

[Laszlo Lebrun]

Post by croy
I'd love to hear about the experiences of those who have
used both OpenOffice Base and Microsoft Access.
I'm somewhat familiar with MS Access, but have never tried
Base.
For an MS Access user, is there any chance of warming up to
Base?
The reason for my interest is the limited / expensive
availability of MS Access.

Anyhow i was not very happy with a try to use Base together with a MySQL
over ODBC on a Mac. But tht was more the fault of a crappy ODBC driver.