[Sigia-l] The Horror of Access Database

[tessa]

> Whoah!
> 
> This is not Access. Any relational database product will have the
> same query conventions. Filemaker, SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc.


>> To me the greatest frustration of any search functionality [from a
>> User perspective] is achieved by entering query after query which
>> comes back with a null set of search results.
> 
> Yes, this is a problem. You can do work on the interface side to
> improve this. But you can get null results in a traditional IR
> system too. 
> 

I think (IMHO) that the problem with Access is that the IT department is
empowered "to do it all", which leads to dBs that have the mind of an
engineer behind them - while not bad, the rest of the planet usually thinks
in a less linear manner....An interesting phenomenon that occurs is that the
IT folks unilaterally decide what to use and how to use it. This type of a
closed system is bound to be narrow in some way. For instance, while Access
provides input fields for metadata, it is NOT required (what were they
thinking?). To me, this engenders ridiculous search results...but IT folks
may not feel that metadata is important, because surely logic will take the
user to their answer, right?? Certainly the user is just NOT computer savvy,
and needs a course to learn how to think like the engineering
department...??

Anyway, I maintain that no single department should have that kind of
power....

Tess