I will take some flame.

Post #45,924 by mmoffitt 7/17/02 8:07:52 PM Reply	I will take some flame. Anyone who has read any of my posts in the last 6 years or so will know that I am by no means a Microsoftie. However, there are two products that Microsoft has made that I believe are decent products. Actually, one good one and one decent one. The good one is Microsoft Sql Server (versions 7.0 and higher). It is a good workgroup database server. It's programmer friendly and is decently stable. I've used the MSDE (free, yeah, can you believe it?) engine on several projects and find it a decent engine for small databases. Which, as I pointed out to the head of support for Sql Server at Microsoft, only goes to prove the old adage that "even a blind hog can find the acorn once in a while." And I maintain that Visual Basic is a good product. Yes, it sucks if you try to use "automation" with any of the rest of the shit that Microsoft makes, but if you stick to doing front-ends to Microsoft databases, it is a decent tool. I'd argue that you take two developers of equal skill in their languages, the VB guy will beat to market anyone developing in any other language. Are VB apps stable? Do pigs fly? But, if you know the product, its limitations and its "features", you can make stable apps with it, and faster than anyone else. LET THE BEATINGS BEGIN :-) Mikem
Post #45,979 by boxley 7/18/02 11:56:32 AM Reply	Oh yea? put a vb guy and a PICK guy next to each other and say develop an accounting module where the same report run twice in a row gives you the same figure and the VB guy will be working until the year 2081. thanks, Bill ."Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I had to subsist on food and water for several weeks." W.C. Fields
Post #46,118 by mmoffitt 7/19/02 4:43:44 PM Reply	Yeah. So, how do you get a graphical UI in PICK?
Post #46,141 by boxley 7/19/02 6:50:40 PM Reply	same way anyone else does X:Y co-ordinates ."Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I had to subsist on food and water for several weeks." W.C. Fields
Post #46,447 by mmoffitt 7/22/02 8:45:05 PM Reply	80x25 char based? :-) I don't really know anything about PICK. I worked at a place for about 4 years that was running a PICK emulator (uniVerse?) on HP-UX. It was an HMO that did their claims processing on it and the app was written in PICK BASIC (at least that's what I thought it was called). I worked on the DSS stuff (which were extracts of the PICK files into Sql Server) so I didn't play much with the emulator too much. Didn't really seem that bad, I occasionally had to do some command line scripting and I did set up a few tables/scripts, even some applets, but was by no means an expert. Years ago when Windows 3.10 came out and I wrote my first database application with the Win16 SDK I thought, this GUI crap will never catch on for head-down data entry. Shows how much foresight I had, doesn't it?
Post #46,525 by boxley 7/23/02 1:34:38 PM Reply	1024X768 :) Just because it is basic doesnt mean they havnt got any rad tools for the front end. Me I have never understood why an AP system needs gui's anyway. thanx, bill ."Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I had to subsist on food and water for several weeks." W.C. Fields
Post #45,990 by CRConrad 7/18/02 3:24:27 PM Reply	Hello, Toast. Mike misguidedly Moffitts: And I maintain that Visual Basic is a good product. Yes, it sucks if you try to use "automation" with any of the rest of the shit that Microsoft makes, but if you stick to doing front-ends to Microsoft databases, it is a decent tool. I'd argue that you take two developers of equal skill in their languages, the VB guy will beat to market anyone developing in any other language. Are VB apps stable? Do pigs fly? But, if you know the product, its limitations and its "features", you can make stable apps with it, and faster than anyone else. You ought to have known to expect this, Mike... If nothing else, then from knowing me. One word: [link\|http://www.borland.com/delphi/\|Delphi]. Burns VB (and thus, you) to a crispy cinder. Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #46,071 by jb4 7/19/02 9:57:37 AM Reply	Amen, brother... Delphi (and its evil Linux twin, whose name I can't remember)...Good! VisualBullshit...Well, the name says it all! jb4 "I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
Post #46,097 by CRConrad 7/19/02 3:08:24 PM Reply	"Kylix". Here's a linky-thingy: [link\|http://www.borland.com/kylix/\|HTH!] :-) Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #46,656 by CRConrad 7/24/02 2:02:43 AM Reply	Hey all, retry that link - Kylix 3 is out! (OP and C++!) That's [link\|http://www.borland.com/kylix/\|[link\|http://www.borland.com/kylix/\|http://www.borland.com/kylix/]]. Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #46,668 by orion 7/24/02 6:13:55 AM Reply	I'll pass for now I went to download Kylix 2.0 before, kept getting calls from Borland asking me if I needed licensing plans and if I had any plans to buy the other copy. I told them I had problems getting my Linux system up and running, would they assist, and they never called me back again. All I wanted to do was download the free version and try it out, not get pestered by Borland telemarketer salespeople. *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #46,670 by orion 7/24/02 6:24:10 AM Reply	Double hmmmm [link\|http://www.borland.com/products/downloads/download_kylix.html\|[link\|http://www.borland.com/products/downloads/download_kylix.html\|http://www.borland....d_kylix.html]] The download page only allows the download of Kylix Open Edition version 2 for Linux. What happened to 3, or is it not available for download yet? *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #46,689 by CRConrad 7/24/02 9:28:07 AM Reply	Dunno, but at a guess, the same thing as with v. 2: They do that later, when they get around to it. Yeah, it sucks (at least a little bit), but I guess ya hafta understand them: The "Open" version is a bonus, a freebie that they don't make any money from -- they gotta concentrate on getting the for-pay versions out the door first. Then again, when I checked out their page (about an hour before finally succeeding in posting this), they didn't have the for-pay versions in their "Online Shop" either; it was just K2 Pro and Enterprise as far as the eye could see. (Did you check, maybe they have those up now, at least?) And their Finnish importer's pages don't seem to know about K3 at all, as of right now. So, alas, I guess it's "Patience, Grasshopper!" for a while yet.. :-( Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #46,718 by jb4 7/24/02 12:05:18 PM Reply	Hoo--fscking--RAAAAYY!!!! AwRIIIGHT! Somebody get it! Now, will Delphi 7 contain C++ Builder as well? (I Hope...I Hope...I Hope...) jb4 "I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
Post #46,120 by mmoffitt 7/19/02 4:50:32 PM Reply	I bought Kylix. Haven't played with it much. You might have a point, but that is among the messiest IDE's I've ever looked at. And no, I don't like VB's either, but it seems a lot less cluttered than Delphi/Kylix. And just to show that I haven't completely lost my mind, not knowing anything about Delphi, I am certain that it is a better tool for serial application development (RS-232). VB has always sucked at that, and it still does.
Post #46,142 by CRConrad 7/19/02 6:50:42 PM 7/19/02 6:57:50 PM Reply	"De gustibus non est disputandum" Personally, I like the Delphi IDE fine... You can customize it quite a lot, I hope you noticed? No, the versions released so far don't have a single "frame" (or "MDI") application-wide main window; but at least on Linux you could kind'a simulate that effect by giving it its own virtual desktop, couldn't you? I haven't a clue about "RS232", except that 'serial' sounds like what is also known (from DOS) as "COM ports"... which, it seems, all belongs under the "[link\|http://www.torry.net/modems.htm\|Modems]" category at [link\|http://www.torry.net/\|Torry's]. (Which is to say, it sure seems possible; what Borland doesn't deliver in the package, others do.) [Added on edit]: Silly me, quoting you the VCL (Win32) components... What you want is on the "[link\|http://www.torry.net/comp_klx_comms.htm\|Kylix Communications Components]" page, of course! There's a lot less stuff there than on the Win32 page, but Lukas Gebauer's "SynaSer Serial Port Library" looks like it could be exactly what you need...? Anyway, it's "FWS" (Torry-speak for "FreeWare with Source"), so you can check it out at pretty much no risk or cost at all. Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus] Edited by CRConrad July 19, 2002, 06:57:50 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #46,445 by mmoffitt 7/22/02 8:39:12 PM Reply	Thanks for the links. It'll be this week-end before I can really check into it, but check into I will. Thanks again, Mikem
Post #46,840 by jake123 7/25/02 12:42:43 PM Reply	Re: Hello, Toast. Another one that will crush the VB developer is rexx. It's a much cleaner language than VB in both its procedural and OO forms. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca * * [link\|http://consultron.ca \|[link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] ] irc.ecomstation.ca * * Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] * -------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #46,964 by CRConrad 7/26/02 2:07:27 AM Reply	Yeah, maybe... But does rexx have a zero-effort GUI builder?
Post #47,003 by imric 7/26/02 8:30:44 AM Reply	It used to, anyway Well, low effort, anyway. There was VX-Rexx and VisPro Rexx... I think CA had a visual Rexx product that could create cross-platform programs (Windows/OS2) as well, but maybe I'm confusing them with Watcom. (Gah - I even had a copy of this product. Brainlock) It's been a long time since I've even thought of visual Rexx.. I think the last time I used Rexx at all was for parsing strings on the AS/400... Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #47,047 by Another Scott 7/26/02 12:00:04 PM Reply	GpfRexx too. Rather unfortunate name, that. :-)
Post #47,542 by jake123 7/30/02 10:38:20 PM Reply	Efforts are underfoot to get Sybase to open source vx-rexx So far they seem receptive. Time will tell if it will come about though. I have VisPro... it's quite zero effort. It was a really nice product. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca * * [link\|http://consultron.ca \|[link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] ] irc.ecomstation.ca * * Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] * -------------------------------------------------------------------

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