Access and Websites

Cork Skate

Lads, want to develop a database driven site and was just wondering about Microsoft Access being used in the background !?!

Are there many problems with the server side of things ??
And is it easy enough to develop a site with Access ?? (does it lend itself to websites)
It is possible to convert it to SQL later on ?? (or even to a text file so i can read the data that way)

Is there anything that i really need to know about it, any words of wisdom that i should hear be before using it.

is_that_so

Don't use Access, it is not scalable. :eek:

Instead take a look at MySQL -it's free , most languages have drivers for it

aidan_walsh

Most web hosts will offer MySQL/SQLServer packages anyway, so I'd suggest just working with that...

If you do insist on working with Access, look for a host that offers Jet/ODBC.

DJB

Ok, using Access will work fine, as long as you don't expect too many visitors. Access can't handle too much of an overload on concurrent usage!

In terms of scalability, there is loads. You can put together a site with access in the background and upgrade to MS SQL at a later date. Try and forsee the upgrade and build an easy update into your code. Watch out for differences in SQL syntax between access and sql, e.g. date (# and ') and delete statement (DELETE FROM and DELETE * FROM). Simple things like that can be easily built into your functions/code at the start.

You didn't say what language you would be writing in. I'm guessing ASP since you are initially thinking of using Access.

I had a recent job of moving an application from an access database to an ms sql database. Great Fun!!! If you can build it working in MS SQL now, you'll save loads of hassle later on!

You'll probably require windows hosting and you can get that off all the major players. There is a thread in the hosting forum about your options there. They should all support access databases. I'd be very suprised if they didn't!

Anyway, best of luck. Drop another question if you are unsure of anything.

Cheeurs,

Dave

jmcc

Cork Skate wrote:

Lads, want to develop a database driven site and was just wondering about Microsoft Access being used in the background !?!

Using Access on any kind of high traffic site is a bad thing. However using MySQL might equally be a mistake. What exactly do you want the site to do and how busy will the database be? Basically the questions you've got to answer when designing a db backed or db driven site are these:

Traffic:
Will the site traffic be measured in hundreds or thousands of page impressions and or users each day?

Database Use:
How busy will the database be? Will it be just dumping out stuff that rarely changes (mainly read-only) or will it be continually updated (read-write)?

Do You Really Need A Database?:
Having a db driven or db backed site is a lot of work. If the data is going to be updated infrequently then it may be a good thing to consider building the site as a set of static pages that you can publish out from a local (desktop) computer. Carrying this idea further, you may be able to limit the number of pages that would be active database wise to a handful.

What Languages And Database Skills Do You Have?:
If you are used to VisualBasic and Access then maybe an ASP/Microsoft Server solution could be the best way to do it. The common languages/database for this kind of thing on the web are php and MySQL. However MySQL does not have a nice user interface like Access but you can use your local copy of Access to interface to MySQL or even to publish out an SQL text file that can be loaded into a MySQL db. It really depends on how you want to do things - ASP and php are easy enough to learn. SQL can be tough and it takes a while to be able to think declaratively in SQL. The Access interface takes a hell of a lot of hard work out of db work.

Define what you want to do and how you will do it:
Sit down and write out what you want the site to do and then start figuring out how to make the site do it. You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't bother to plan out a db driven or db backed site. That's ok if you are taking a hobbyist approach but if your site gets successful, it can cause a lot of grief when you have to scale it. Break each step down and make sure that you can test them in isolation - get one of those spiral bound reporter's notebooks and keep track of everything.

There are some good threads here in the Webmaster/Flash forum about db driven/db backed websites but you would have to search back a few years I think.

Regards...jmcc

The Corinthian

Cork Skate wrote:

Are there many problems with the server side of things ??

As has already been said, Access is no scaleable. Given this, if you intend developing a hobby site that’s not exactly going to be hopping with visitors, it’ll never realistically need to scale.

And is it easy enough to develop a site with Access ?? (does it lend itself to websites)

Frankly, as easy as most other databases.

It is possible to convert it to SQL later on ?? (or even to a text file so i can read the data that way)

SQL-what? MySQL? MS SQL? PostgreSQL? You may want to do a little more homework on this. Nonetheless, you’ll find that there are converters available for Access to any of those database formats, although the quality of conversion varies and invariably will require manual tweaking.

mneylon

As already stated Access DOES NOT scale.
We've had more than one client run into serious issues with it in the past and would not wish it on anyone

If you are running windows on your desktop there is nothing to stop you reading in a remote MySQL DB if you have the correct drivers installed.

pork99

jmcc wrote:

However MySQL does not have a nice user interface like Access but you can use your local copy of Access to interface to MySQL or even to publish out an SQL text file that can be loaded into a MySQL db. It really depends on how you want to do things - ASP and php are easy enough to learn. SQL can be tough and it takes a while to be able to think declaratively in SQL. The Access interface takes a hell of a lot of hard work out of db work.

MySQL has a web-based interface which I've found fairly easy to use

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/

jmcc

pork99 wrote:

MySQL has a web-based interface which I've found fairly easy to use

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/

The phpmyadmin is light years away in usability from Microsoft's Access product. Though I usually program at the command line/client level with MySQL or write text files of SQL for loading, I also use Access on some big databases as a quick reporting frontend. There are some other MySQL frontends available for Windows which do more or less what Access does but for any Windows user with Access, getting an ODBC is a good move.

Given that most vanilla hosting accounts come with MySQL for free, it is probably the best entry level product. PHP also is a standard with vanilla hosting accounts. So unless you opt for a Windows type hosting account, the most obvious solution is MySQL/PHP.

Regards...jmcc