Microsoft Access is Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant. The trouble is that they let anyone, and his dog, get their hands on it; worst of all are end-Users. There should be a law against it.

Ee when I were a lad, you'd do a five-year apprenticeship on automation (later known as 'computers') whilst studying Fortran and Assembler. You would then have a job for life and work in noisy air-conditioned rooms, away from the scum they'd call Users.

Things have changed. Users rule. They're even allowed to touch the computer, and eat in the same room and spill coffee into the ventilation louvres. Now, they think that they can read Chapter 1 of a book then write a relational database application. To aggravate matters, Bill Gates is encouraging them to do so.

So what happens? I'll tell you what happens. They make something that barely works, with no pride in their work, and their customer thinks this as cheap development, as they ignore the significant support overhead and user displeasure.

Enough of this! I'm not cross with you. I'm just cross, partly as I haven't ridden piggy-back with a lady bunny for a while.

There is a great difference between an application that works, to one that works well. Hopefully these pages will give you some useful tips to move beyond simple programming and deliver engineered solutions. If you have any comments Email me at Harvey's Almanac of Microsoft Access Engineering Please include photographs of your wife and daughters. No begging letters, please.