Microsoft Access Ideas
Intro
- Here are a couple of ideas on Microsoft Access, a great product whose potential could be taken a lot further :-).
Patch
- Although Microsoft has not released any specifications for their proprietary binary format of an Access .mdb file, all data and structure is relatively easy to extract through the generous object model and use of code.
- Examples of this can be found in the import/export utilities that float around MySQL such as access_to_mysql, importsql and exportsql.
- By being able to export and import in a standard format, a number of interesting things would become possible. Here's what I've thought of this far:
- It would be possible to compare two databases for changes, using standard diff and patch utilities.
- Software updates could be distributed as diffs. (Huge win for Open Source-release often projects).
- It would be possible to read the data into apps other than Access. You could for example write your own web replacement for Access (one of the holy grails ;-)).
- I also believe that implementing this could be a perfect Open Source project. We'll see what happens.
More stuff:
- Go up to more links.