amostil

Guilty. I have an AccessDB right now that reads from 3 different management systems to create tasking for a small office and about 450 external independent contractors. The first system is via a web scrape because the API costs too much. The second system is via a SOAP API and the third system is based in MariaDB. It reads data from each system and restructures it for tasking then analyzes and reports on the performance of the completed tasks. It also sends out nagging emails for tasks that are lagging behind and does a million other little things. To say it is a mission critical application is an understatement.

I have been a "developer" or should I say, I used to be a developer since the COBOL/DB2 days. I have used a vast array of systems and languages over the years but I have always had a love for the simplicity and power behind Office. But, the times they are a changing. Right now I am learning Go with the intention of marrying it with VueJS so I can at least pretend to be somewhat current.

I have seen all of these symptoms at numerous large companies. The backlog is years deep and the costs associated with engaging the professional programmers could be staggering. The truth is, not all solutions need anything more robust than what Office can provide.

I used to work as part of a "Shadow IT Group" within a fortune 50 defense contractor. We built fairly complex solutions within MS Office because we were denied the tools to do the job properly. The most complex program I ever wrote in access was controlling electrical arrangements. This database was synchronized nightly across 3 different domains and would routinely have in excess of 50 concurrent users. I think the largest table had around 500,000 rows. The beauty of development in Office is the price tag and the time from concept to implementation. There was very little we could not accomplish with a combination of Access, Excel and sometimes a little wsh.