Re: It's dead

HTML forms SUCK for data entry. You can kludge a lot with Javasacript, but it is never enough. Scrolling grids with embedded logic is just too damn painful. We considered web extensions, such as flash and XUL, but in both cases they are bleeding tech with limited people who know them, and we will not have time for exploration.

We spent about 3 minutes actually thinking we could stop-gap it with a curses (or like toolkit) interface. And then we rethought, since we want to expand this with limited graphical stuff such as scanned images, and again, scrolling grids is a pain in the ass using vanilla character terminals.

So:
#1 - It will need to have a Windows front end that fullfillment employees
can use. These people sometimes speak very little English, have low
literacy, and no computer "skills".
#2 - It needs to perform at least as well as the current CICS system
#3 - It will have to have a SQL back end
#4 - It will have to be modular enough to swap out interfaces, currently
need to talk to MF via FTP JCL, future talk to other systems
#5 - It will need a back processing / batch reporting environment, which
I choose to be Perl / SQL / Linux

Post #167,651 by deSitter 8/5/04 10:30:07 AM Reply	Re: It's dead Since it's screeny (CICS) why not convert it to curses or the like? Or even some direct webform idiom like Acrobat Forms? -drl
Post #167,691 by FuManChu 8/5/04 12:28:09 PM Reply	Ahhh...ahhhh....ahhh.....aychoochtml
Post #167,711 by broomberg 8/5/04 1:44:55 PM Reply	We discussed both HTML forms SUCK for data entry. You can kludge a lot with Javasacript, but it is never enough. Scrolling grids with embedded logic is just too damn painful. We considered web extensions, such as flash and XUL, but in both cases they are bleeding tech with limited people who know them, and we will not have time for exploration. We spent about 3 minutes actually thinking we could stop-gap it with a curses (or like toolkit) interface. And then we rethought, since we want to expand this with limited graphical stuff such as scanned images, and again, scrolling grids is a pain in the ass using vanilla character terminals. So: #1 - It will need to have a Windows front end that fullfillment employees can use. These people sometimes speak very little English, have low literacy, and no computer "skills". #2 - It needs to perform at least as well as the current CICS system #3 - It will have to have a SQL back end #4 - It will have to be modular enough to swap out interfaces, currently need to talk to MF via FTP JCL, future talk to other systems #5 - It will need a back processing / batch reporting environment, which I choose to be Perl / SQL / Linux
Post #167,720 by deSitter 8/5/04 2:00:36 PM Reply	Acrobat forms = javascript ..with a big API for validating data etc. It's something that should get a try in a real context. -drl

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