Slashdot Mirror
SQL Vs. Access for Learning Database Concepts?
Jonathan Hamilton asks: "I work at the School of Communications for a major state University. The IT Department for the University (the same people that won't let us have a firewall, and use IIS and Exchange) is trying to talk my boss into switching from using SQL for teaching database concepts to MS Access. My coworkers and I think they are nuts. I have googled for pages comparing the two and can't come up with anything. I know some of the reasons why it is a bad idea, but I can't find any references. Help!" The mantra here is: the best tool for the best job. Is Access a suitable tool for teaching database concepts to students? If not, what would you use instead, and why?
Access has the most overhead according to this.
Here's a link to a discussion where the poster states that Access is not good for large installations...
You might check with IBM (DB2), Oracle, MySQL, or Postgres for help as well...I'm sure they'ld be more than happy to help.
Cross platform compatability. Students with Windoze, Linux, or Macs can run most SQL servers...not so with Access...
And then there's the corporate settings...most companies are using DB2, Oracle, MySql, or something that is ANSI-SQL compatible...not M$ SQL...
You also have more utilities and help available for SQL than Access...
There's GUI tools, schema browsers, etc all available for SQL...
If your school runs its website on a *NIX server, you could up-play the compatibility angle...you know, senior projects and such...
One major advantage of SQL is that all of the companies/organizations that I mentioned are free or have a free educational version...I doubt M$ does...