Access vs MySQL - Refuting article errors
Written 31 Jan 2005
While ordinarily, I'm no defender of Microsoft applications, while searching for a feature comparison between MySQL and MS Access I found the article MySQL versus Access to be very wrong on several points. If you do a feature comparision, at least check that your data is correct. Now, I could not find a published date for the article, thus it is possible the author was comparing a very old version of Access. Let us examine some of his points.
- You want your data to be deployed with more flexibility. Here, the author presents MySQL being better because it can be accessed via numerous ways. The same is true of Access. It can be accessed via ODBC connections, ADODB calls, graphical client and integrated with a web browser using any of a number of server side languages.
- You are not the only person who control the data. Since at least version 97, Access has supported multiple users. The ease of doing this is at least as complicated as MySQL's. Check the help documentation how to do this.
- You want your data secured and only accessed by authorized people. His claims here are strange, and show a lack of understanding of some security basics. Access can be made as secure as MySQL. MySQL can be made as insecure as he claims Access is. It comes down to quality administration and following basic security guidelines.
This reduces his valid points to three. Not necessarily enough to make a true
comparison between the two. It rather strangles his statement After a
thorough understanding of the pros and cons of Access and MySQL
since his
article doesn't even come near to fully exploring pros and cons for either.
The sad part is, all this can be found by reading the manual. This indicates to me the article writer has no experience with Access and thus is unqualified to write an article comparing it to MySQL.