>>>>>>Well I'm sticking with my prediction that it will be Office+SQlServer that will 'replace' programming for the typical business environment, and sooner than people think.
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>>>>>That's come and gone. Thinking that users could connect to data, retrieve it and update all through Word and Excel. Way too hard and too complicated.
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>>>>You sound like the guy who told me emphatically that backgammon would never be computerized < s >.
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>>>>Really, though, you're not giving software enough credit.
>>>>With Word "forms" it seems just a simple dialogue box to ask the user a few questions (simple ones) and let the software figure out what to do with entered data. It can even revise structures as it goes along and 'learns' more. About all the user would have to do is to 'relate' forms in the same "project" (call it something else for an office worker) and the software can figure out the rest or ask simple questions to find out.
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>>>>It's "programming" that has gotten far too complicated. And Microsoft sells tools for programming yet basically ignores the BASIC requirement of business - to process DATA.
>>>>
>>>>I'm 2 weeks into a new job at a very big shop. They have forms to 'control' everything. It wouldn't take much to have a Wod/SQL Server link to have the entered information go directly to a database. And other simple 'forms' to extract data when needed.
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>>>And who develops these forms? Or do they just magically appear?
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>>Word does "forms" now. Anyone who has a business 'problem' that they feel can be solved with a form, or a series of forms, will develop those forms.
>>Just a few questions at the front and/or back end (opening and closing the form in 'design') and bob's-your-uncle.
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>Are you saying end users develop them? That has been a lot more promise than reality in my experience. Even very smart end users tend not to have the gearhead gene.

It doesn't take a genius to think through a series of forms that may be required to get a job done. That happens every day, in virtually every business.
And most of those who do so can easily see that for things to get from one 'stage' to the next they are repeating an amount of information on the second form. And they've no doubt wished that "the system" could figure that out for itself and PUT the redundant information directly into the form.
No special gene required. Just a dose of common sense.
Once they grasp that simple concept they are on their way to forms-based bliss. A few simple questions along the way and they get their 'database' designed as they go along. And it gets changed under-the-covers as they progress.
People do similarly with spreadsheets already, capturing data in some cells and 'processing' it in other cells to output something else in yet other cells. With forms it just happens from form to form instead of cell to cell.