> The author is kind of all over the place,

Yes. His article's intent is to describe a problem.

He then tries to give examples of solutions, and they're bad suggestions. Still, he's right about the problem. We are in a kind of dark age at the moment, and the technology web stack is an unnecessary horror.

Regarding databases, I think what you're proposing is a step in the wrong direction. Databases is one of the major problems of our age, and cause of software being so difficult to get right. Many programmers will use a database to solve any problem.

There's an endemic problem of developers exposing databases as APIs, and then getting immediately bogged in complexity. We need less of that.

"Databases is one of the major problems of our age, and cause of software being so difficult to get right."

Strange. I think of databases as one of the bright spots in computing. They are very closely related to real business needs, and do a good job for the most part.

MS Access was great because it also had a form builder and it could all work over a network[1]. That means you could get a small business organized around a database easily and incrementally.

Now, we have to actually program to make that happen (e.g. rails, django, etc.) and design the forms with text rather than graphically. That's a big step backward for the technical non-programmers (e.g. accountants, HR professionals, etc.).

Of course, I'm always willing to hear new ideas. If you think you have the answer, please share (and/or start a startup).

Disclaimer: I have been heavily involved with databases from many perspectives (user, application developer, DBA, internals hacker). So, it's not a surprise that I think databases are great.

[1] Yes, the networking was a disaster from a technical standpoint. But that's an implementation issue, not a fundamental problem.

I had a think about it over the day, and decided that what you're proposing would bring power to users, and be an improvement. Focus on content rather than presentation, power to the users, less layers. Thanks for a considered reply.

> If his general point is to bring computing to more people, I think a modern, web-based version of MS Access would be a huge step. Everyone needs databases. Everyone needs forms to access them in a way that makes sense for their business. Right now you have to actually program to make that happen.

Most real world MS Access databases needed all of tables, forms, and behavior that required code. Online graphical tools for building the tables and forms components might be useful, but its not going to stop you from needing code for behavior.

That being said, something like Access for the web would be great. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Well, sure, they needed some code. But you could add it in small bits, like Excel, and gradually improve.

That's why accountants, etc., were able to use it. They aren't unable to code, they are unwilling to spend the time necessary to start from scratch each time.

Web based version of Access? From what I've seen of it, SalesForce seems like it could fit the bill.

Didn't strike me as particularly well done though.