The Programmers Lament

You know the confident feeling when that task in front of you is clear, you can visualize the process from start to finish and you set about it, everything goes according to plan, nearing completion and you suddenly realize that what you thought you could do, you can’t! You start to hack it, modify it, shoe horn it until it works.

You reflect on what you’ve done and you realize you’ve made a complete mess of it. You wish that you could go back in time and tell yourself to sit down and plan out exactly what you are going to do before you start.

Well it’s too late this time, I have programmed myself into a corner, and it’s getting to the stage where I know that I will be better off starting from scratch. Not an easy decision after three days work!

So why am I writing this now? Well, basically it’s a note to myself, I will come and read this next time I start a project with the arrogant notion that I know how to do it without committing my ideas to paper first!

What I should have done.
Add the controls to a dummy form and make sure that they logically selected the conditions for each and every query the form was designed to produce.

Write each query out in full SQL, once everything is up and running correctly, then hack the SQL into nice tidy joined together string variables.

Send this monstrous ungainly form to the customer for approval before wasting days on making the code work clever!

Finally, before undertaking any task again, read this!

Why should you consider an MS Access database for your business

Off the Shelf
The first thing you should consider is what is available off the peg. There are some nice software packages out there that suit most businesses. If you need any help or advice on selecting one then please don't hesitate to contact me I would only be too pleased to help.

Access can do will do!
Once you have a eliminated the comprehensive and vertical applications that might suit your business, then it is time to start thinking about what you really want to happen. What do you expect from MS Access?

ROI
There's no doubt that MS Access is one of the most cost effective ways for your business to take advantage of information technology and there are many reasons people decide to "computerize" their business, I have listed common ones below:

• Key Man
• Retirement
• Business Sale
• Reduce Repetitive Work
• Staff expectation
• Competitive Advantage
• ISO Accreditation
• Quality Assurance
• Saving on Waste
• Spotting Opportunity

Halfway There
You may already be familiar with technology for helping your business; you are most probably using Outlook for your address book and a spreadsheet for recording orders and sales. You possibly have a spreadsheet for doing estimates. Wouldn't it be nice if all of this was in the same package? What if this information could be shared easily between everyone in your organization?

How much will it cost?
One of the major costs is in producing a specification; however this is painful for both you and me! You probably have some spreadsheets that are ripe for conversion into a database, if you have, you are well on the way to producing a specification, in other words something we can both work with to work out the best way to get to a database solution suitable for your business. And that's the key to reducing the cost, you can do much of the work yourself, and spread it out over months or years further reducing the financial burden on your business.

Making a start!
If you're interested, or think you may be interested in the future, then make a start now! Start getting your information into a spreadsheet, stop using post-it notes! Draw up a nice form for gathering information from your customer, this form will eventually become a screen in your database. More about that later! Any questions or comments please e-mail me.