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KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release
An anonymous reader writes "Horst Knorr released a new test version of Knoda. With this release Knoda is the first KDE database frontend reading MS Access databases natively and is getting closer to its goal to be a full replacement for MS Access. Knoda is a database-frontend for KDE. Besides tables and queries Knoda comprises forms and reports, which are scriptable via Python."
..Yet another proof that all open source coders learnt in one school where they did a Phd on GPL and worshipped GodOfWeirdNames.
Is it just me, the headline made me think "Alien vs Predator?"
I can mess around with Diebold's voting mechanism with open-source tools. I would have done it with Microsoft Access, but I have principles.
MSaccess is used to run alot of small businesses (who think that Access is somehow better than Excel). It would be nice to see if Knoda would also support more db like functionality (like transactions maybe) with autocommit turned on so that it seemed to work like access. Also, if you could make this have some transparent SQL layer so it could be a front-end to real databases (mySQL, etc.). But another barrier for some to migrate has been overcome. Good work.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
It's the single worse assault to databases in the history of the world. I think it's some kind of punishment for people who've committed a sin in some past life to get hired to work on access applications. It's just ungodly bad, perl has nothing against access for being able to write bad code. Ugh, and they are trying to replace it. Destroying it would be a better idea. Erase its existence from the universe.
I'd be more impressed if some open source developer created an actual relational database with arbitrary constraints, updateable views, efficient joins, all the good stuff that I've been waiting 30 years to appear in an actual product.
Instead we get Yet Another Access Clone.
Y'know, if I want to use Access, I can, you know, use Access?
Yes, I know it's only a front-end for a MS product. Yes, Access has issues. In fact, yes, yes, ok ...
However, consider how many Access users and programmers now have a much easier entry point into the GNU, KDE, Linux, Open source, Python and Xbase worlds.
A rich and diverse tool set would include a pair of pliers.
Words to men, as air to birds.
...support VBA like all other great modern desktop applications? /just askin'
Blarf.
MS Access isn't total crap. It is great for data conversion. It's a lot easier to fix a bunch of spreadsheets in Access and move it to a real database like Oracle or DB2. Moving between database types through ODBC is easy and you can clean out rows with a touch of the delete key. There are expensive tools that do the job but why get them when Access does it. Nothing is more painful than dumping to text files and using a tool like Oracle SQL*Loader.
:-)
Having said all that I would never use MS Access for a real application.
Now crappy programmers who use Linux can write truely awful applications just like their Windows brothers.
Can't wait to see all the wonderful new stuff written in PHP apps that use Knoda that are ment to replace the VB6 that use Access.
Linux is really boring from an os standpoint. Now Plan 9......
Hmmm. A little late on the draw. Somebody is finally getting close enough to replace MS-Access, that has been around for a long time, and that Microsoft appears to be shifting the focus away from. Nice afterthought indeed.
Microsoft's latest SQL Server Express offering is the focus.
Knoda seems novel, but why not stack some reporting software on MySql or something similar?
Now network database programming from new converts will consist of an Access DB file on a samba share. Next stop, Data corruption city.
Rekall is not a bad database frontend with Access like style, but that can be used with a range of database backends (mysql, postgresql, etc). Like other Kompany products its is even dual licensed under the GPL. See RekallRevealed.Org
Logic is not Divine.
I have to agree, with an addendum. A large part of my current job has been migrating cobbled-together Excel spreadsheets into Access applications. I'm by no means an Access evangelist but it gets the job done - and for a lot of teams, Access is all they'll ever need.
:)
What bugs me is the knee-jerk reaction everybody has when I tell them I developed $APPLICATION in Access. "Why don't you get a *real* database?" Ummm...huh?
Explanatory Anecdote: My employer's Asset Management department (five people) was mis-using Excel to put together its quarterly Asset Portfolio Report. Besides the fact that only one person work on the file at a time (a real annoyance), they constantly had problems with sorting, formatting, page layout, etc. etc. You get the idea. They were spending more time managing the report then doing analysis.
So, I moved the whole thing to Access - and it wasn't a straight import job, either. Planned out a database schema and normalized the data, recreated the Excel workbook format as an Access report, and finally built a forms interface. Put it on the network, and soon the Asset Management department was humming along updating their data. A report that used to take two weeks now takes 15 minutes.
Finally, the moment of truth arrives: we show our new Asset Management application to our outside consultant. We spend 20 minutes or so demonstrating the forms interface and some reports, receiving a lot of "oohs" and "aahs." Then comes question and answer time. What're the first words out of the consultant's mouth?
"Have you thought about moving this to a real database, like SQL?"
(Yes, he really said just "SQL" - I immediately knew he meant SQL Server. Still, WTF?)
Why oh why would we want to move to SQL Server? Only five people use the database, and usually only two at a time. No need for clustering or advanced analysis. It's secure enough inside our password protected network drive. It's not an enterprise application! Fortunately, our CEO knew better and brushed off this suggestion.
Still, I feel for those business that have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on systems they didn't need because some consultant thought they should use a "real" database.
All that said, somebody pleeeease port Knoda to Windoze?
KNoda doesn't have the same ability to beat an unsuspecting comms link into quivering jelly that MS Access seems to ship with natively.
AFAICT KNoda does all of the subset selection at the server end. You might have to get your app to schedule a bunch of random large queries to obtain comparable response times. And don't forget to constantly broadcast crap to ports 137-139 as you go.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It'll be just another part of the KDE-on-native-MS-Windows port. I look forward with incipient hilarity for Microsoft's first MS-Access-on-native-Linux port.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...many VBX applications being run out of town on a Rails. It would surprise me if KNoda couldn't script in a variety of languages, and surprise me even more if it remained so for long.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says.
The license section on the about page says that Rekall is licensed under the GPL but also includes:
There is no such right or power as what they describe. Rekall is distributed to me under the GNU GPL. If their GPL contains language to the above effect, the work is inconsistently licensed which means I cannot leverage anything the GPL grants because it disallows adding terms more restrictive than what the GPL says.
But if the GPL they use is not inconsistently licensed to me, I could distribute a Rekall derivative under the GPL. If I distribute a Rekall derivative under the GNU GPL, they don't have any power to distribute my changes under any license other than the GPL. I retain a copyright to my code and I'm licensing it to everyone (including Mike Richardson, John Dean, and theKompany.com) under the GPL. Distributing my code under any other license would constitute copyright infringement.
Digital Citizen
It is one thing that KDE programs all start with K. But this guy putting a K in front of his real name just to show everyone he's a KDE programmer? come on!!!
Go hug some trees.