Migrate from Access 2010 / VBA

[kagard]

On Nov 26, 11:21 am, Michael Torrie <torr... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/22/2012 08:19 PM, kgard wrote:
>
> > I am the lone developer of db apps at a company of 350+ employees.
> > Everything is done in MS Access 2010 and VBA. I'm frustrated with the
> > limitations of this platform and have been considering switching to
> > Python. I've been experimenting with the language for a year or so,
> > and feel comfortable with the basics.
>
> Python is just a language, just like VBA itself is just a language.  You
> can't just replace an MS Access VBA app with one in Python.  You have to
> replace your *tools* with open source alternatives, that hopefully
> python can glue together.  Wolfgang provided a nice list of such tools.
>
> One program that claims to be working towards Access replacement is
> Kexi.  It's not written in Python, but I think it does use Python as a
> scripting language, just as Access uses VBA.  I doubt it's anywhere near
> Access yet, but it's worth a look:
>
> http://kexi-project.org/about.html
>
> > <snip>
> > Has anyone here made this transition successfully? If so, could you
> > pass along your suggestions about how to do this as quickly and
> > painlessly as possible?
>
> It will not be painless at all.  There is no "transition" path, really.
>  That's partly the result of Microsoft product lock-in, partly because
> you want to replace a complete system that happens to be glued together
> with, simply, "Python."
>
> I think Python could be a great fit if you could find the right tools to
> go with it, but it's not going to be easy at all.  Complete MS Access
> replacements is one of the may extremely weak spots in the open source
> world.  Partly because web-based apps often work better than a desktop
> DB solution, and you might want to go there too, perhaps using a python
> web development toolkit like django.
>
>

I understand your comment about replacing tools. Since things tend to
fall apart at the seams, though, I wouldn't mind keeping the seams to
a minumum. That's why I had been thinking about something like Django
or Web2Py. Web2Py seems to more correctly represent MVC, and I like
that its template scripting mirrors Python syntal.

Thanks for your reply.

I will now cower at my keyboard and await my "Django kicks Web2Py's
butt" lashing.