I have used Microsoft Access in nearly every role I have ever had. Whether I am ‘keeping track of my AI Recipes’ or printing Invoices for the Pope, it’s almost ALWAYS going to contain Microsoft Access, at least in part.
I have used Microsoft Access for screen-scraping HTML websites. It has some amazing features. Being able to use Rich-Text in Microsoft Access is a feature that is frequently minimized.
I have found copying and pasting between MarkDown and RichText to be nearly seamless!
Access is good for SOME solutions. I don’t believe that websites should ever talk to Microsoft Access, I have written a fair amount of Classic ASP that did that. It feels like SOOOO long ago!
Microsoft Access, despite its age, provides a surprisingly robust environment for data manipulation and automation, particularly when dealing with web content. Its ability to parse and extract data from HTML structures, coupled with its powerful query capabilities, makes it a viable tool for specific screen-scraping tasks. The integration of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) allows for customized automation routines, further enhancing its utility in these scenarios.
The strength of Access lies in its rapid prototyping and data management capabilities for internal applications and smaller databases. Its intuitive interface and built-in reporting tools make it accessible to users with varying technical expertise. However, for large-scale, public-facing web applications requiring high availability and performance, modern database solutions and web technologies are far more suitable.