On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:28:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> But I do agree that oobase isn't the best piece of software - I've used
>> it quite a bit for accessing things like Oracle tables, and the setup
>> could be a lot smoother.  Supports ODBC and JDBC, though, so that's
>> something.
> 
> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing about
> MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you want to
> do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most lightweight
> thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice front-end and a design
> tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for small things it's
> right-sized.

Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux to 
do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend (heck, 
my newsreader uses it).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> The go-oo implementation has a subset of VBA included in it (I understand 
> it's a fairly sizeable subset, but I've never needed to use it).

I'll have to look and see what it does.

I'd still prefer REXX. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:29:29 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> I'm guessing JavaScript? (Or maybe even Java, of course...)

There is some Java support, yes.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
>> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing about
>> MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you want to
>> do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most lightweight
>> thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice front-end and a design
>> tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for small things it's
>> right-sized.
> 
> Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux to 
> do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend (heck, 
> my newsreader uses it).

Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create 
a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL 
commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the 
tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you 
can configure Base to talk to it.

In MS Access, you click "file > new", select a filename, and you're 
done. See what I mean?

Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy 
stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security, 
anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm guessing JavaScript? (Or maybe even Java, of course...)

It's really not a question of the language or whether you can script the 
software from inside. It's a question of whether you can get it to talk to 
the outside through scripts. You need to be able to have *one* script talk 
to *multiple* tools. If you can't have one button that fills in the 
appropriate stuff after talking to three different programs, it's just not 
as useful a scripting language as the COM-based stuff.  COM is to MS what 
pipelines are to UNIX. If the script is stored only in the one tool and it 
can't talk to scripts running inside another tool, it's like the shell 
without pipes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy 
> stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security, 
> anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.

Yeah. Access is really MS's version of SQLite. It wasn't really intended for 
end users to use it. It was so programmers would have a place to store stuff 
their program used if they needed that sort of storage rather than 
individual bulk files.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

>> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
>> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they just
>> haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
> 
> What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?

Have series 1 plotted against the Y-axis scale at the left end of the 
chart, and series 2 plotted against the (unrelated) Y-axis scale at the 
right end of the chart.

Come to think of it, I think I also had trouble plotting a bar chart 
with a line graph overlayed...

>> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far more
>> logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to do, etc.
> 
> That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a 
> critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at 
> user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more 
> users and provide more options.

Linux used to be almost unusable. It's got a lot better... but now it 
seems to have plataued out again. So it's not just a function of being OSS.

>> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
>> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific example
>> right now.)
> 
> There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.  
> You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be 
> like MS Office, that's a starting point).

Oh, I *like* that it isn't like MS Office. It's just that certain things 
are either well-hidden or just not implemented yet.

>>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
>> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company logo,
>> for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably working on
>> improving.
> 
> What version have you used?  Have you opened bugs on these issues?

To file a bug, I'd have to pin down exactly what it's doing wrong. Just 
saying "I converted this document once and the headers came out wrong" 
isn't going to help anybody. (Especially since I can't show them the 
document. It's confidential commercial property, after all.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:26:07 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of  
> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to  
> *care* any more...

Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

>>>> I tried KOffice. It works, but it doesn't seem to *do* very much, and
>>>> it's infuriatingly fiddly to operate. (Especially the spreadsheet. In
>>>> fact, I've yet to find any spreadsheet that works as well as Excel -
>>>> which is worrying, considering that Excel wasn't work fantastically.)
>>> oocalc works very well, I find.
>> I tried the spreadsheet from KOffice, Gnumeric, and OO Calc. I didn't
>> really like any of them. Calc has improved a bit since then, but it's
>> still a bit irritating to operate.
> 
> "irritating" how?  In that "it's not Excel", or in that you couldn't 
> figure out the way to do specific things?

Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line. 
Little UI quirks like that. And also some bigger things, like not 
supporting certain chart options.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most* 
> people didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a 
> list editor. MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations, 
> while 1-2-3 added a whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel won.

It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".

People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! >_< If you need a database, for the love of 
God, USE A DATABASE! GRR!!

Sorry, rant over...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of 
>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to 
>> *care* any more...
> 
> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...

...really??

Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:40:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.

The version I use does that.

> like not supporting certain chart options.

Such as?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of  
>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to  
>>> *care* any more...
>>  Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>
> ...really??
>
> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D

No, your copy is still illegal...



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of 
>>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to 
>>>> *care* any more...
>>>  Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>>
>> ...really??
>>
>> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
> 
> No, your copy is still illegal...

Awww! :-(

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:39:47 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
>>> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they
>>> just haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
>> 
>> What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?
> 
> Have series 1 plotted against the Y-axis scale at the left end of the
> chart, and series 2 plotted against the (unrelated) Y-axis scale at the
> right end of the chart.
> 
> Come to think of it, I think I also had trouble plotting a bar chart
> with a line graph overlayed...

I think I did something like that recently, but I'd have to go look.

>>> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far
>>> more logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to
>>> do, etc.
>> 
>> That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a
>> critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at
>> user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more
>> users and provide more options.
> 
> Linux used to be almost unusable. It's got a lot better... but now it
> seems to have plataued out again. So it's not just a function of being
> OSS.

Sure, it's not a function of being OSS, true.  But again, "almost 
unusable" isn't a helpful description.  My wife uses Linux daily.  I've 
used it for over a decade.

Linux isn't Windows:  Most people who say that Linux is "unusable" are 
expecting a free version of Windows.  It isn't, it's something different.

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

That's a pretty good article someone wrote a few years ago explaining 
this.

>>> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
>>> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific
>>> example right now.)
>> 
>> There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.
>> You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be
>> like MS Office, that's a starting point).
> 
> Oh, I *like* that it isn't like MS Office. It's just that certain things
> are either well-hidden or just not implemented yet.

Well, either that or you don't know how to use them and are too 
<adjective> to ask for help (proud, perhaps?).

>>>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>>> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
>>> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company
>>> logo, for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably
>>> working on improving.
>> 
>> What version have you used?  Have you opened bugs on these issues?
> 
> To file a bug, I'd have to pin down exactly what it's doing wrong. Just
> saying "I converted this document once and the headers came out wrong"
> isn't going to help anybody. (Especially since I can't show them the
> document. It's confidential commercial property, after all.)

No, you don't really have to go to that extent.  Duplicate the document 
with a generic graphic and use that.   Most people *think* you have to be 
very specific about what the problem is (so specific that if you coded in 
the language, you could fix the bug), and that's not generally true.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:34:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
>>> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing
>>> about MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you
>>> want to do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most
>>> lightweight thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice
>>> front-end and a design tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for
>>> small things it's right-sized.
>> 
>> Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux
>> to do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend
>> (heck, my newsreader uses it).
> 
> Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
> a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
> commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
> tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
> can configure Base to talk to it.

Um, no, generally the app will list mysql as a requirement, but then will 
script the building of the database.  Or if it's SQLite, then it's pre-
created by the application.  Running Linux applications isn't as complex 
as you seem to think it is.

And as for the database creation, I tend to use something like Webmin or 
MySQLAdmin (a PHP interface) which simplifies things.  But I'm also 
comfortable using the mysql command-line client as well.

> In MS Access, you click "file > new", select a filename, and you're
> done. See what I mean?
> 
> Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy
> stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security,
> anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.

I'm not arguing that.

Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as easy 
to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I don't use 
it that often).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
> The version I use does that.

Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers with 
exactly this sort of thing.  I ranted here, and about two days later, 
suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I don't know 
what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it was, but 
somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to put the 
cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me. I must have 
unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or something, because 
it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it did.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! 

Sure it is.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:07:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (
>> Maybe for the features *you* use. I don't remember seeing how to get it
>> to talk COM to a SQL database so you can automate importing a chart from
>> Calc into Word based on a database query.
> 
> True, that's not something I've ever needed to use, but then again, I 
> probably wouldn't look to use a specific technology (COM) to accomplish 
> the task, largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.

That, and other cool stuff, like the fact that you can put it on a shared 
drive and have multiple people working on the same file without conflict. 
All kinds of "power" stuff that people who don't use it for a living do use.

Kind of like showing the boss a unit test framework integrated into the IDE 
and him going "Yeah, so? I have an editor and a compiler."  It's stuff you 
might not ever use unless your job is making and sharing these complex 
presentations with other people.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:03:21 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next
>>> line.
>> The version I use does that.
> 
> Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers
> with exactly this sort of thing.  I ranted here, and about two days
> later, suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I
> don't know what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it
> was, but somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to
> put the cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me.
> I must have unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or
> something, because it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it
> did.

LOL

Post a reply to this message

>> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
>> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! 
> 
> Sure it is.

Unfortunately, people (especially our IT department) keep trying to use 
Excel when they should be using a database.

Stuff like records that multiple people need to access, which will grow 
larger and larger over time, which might need to be sorted in various 
ways and even searched. That kind of thing. Stuff that even Access can 
do very easily, but which Excel really isn't geared towards.

Still, what can you do?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:08:31 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:07:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>> 
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (
>>> Maybe for the features *you* use. I don't remember seeing how to get
>>> it to talk COM to a SQL database so you can automate importing a chart
>>> from Calc into Word based on a database query.
>> 
>> True, that's not something I've ever needed to use, but then again, I
>> probably wouldn't look to use a specific technology (COM) to accomplish
>> the task, largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
> 
> That, and other cool stuff, like the fact that you can put it on a
> shared drive and have multiple people working on the same file without
> conflict. All kinds of "power" stuff that people who don't use it for a
> living do use.

Docs and spreadsheets in such a way?  I don't have a use case for 
something like that, but I can see where someone might.

> Kind of like showing the boss a unit test framework integrated into the
> IDE and him going "Yeah, so? I have an editor and a compiler."  It's
> stuff you might not ever use unless your job is making and sharing these
> complex presentations with other people.

True.  I do share stuff with other people, but co-creation of documents 
tends to be done using remote viewing software (for example).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> Docs and spreadsheets in such a way?  I don't have a use case for 
> something like that, but I can see where someone might.

Yes. It also handles the locking and conflict resolution and stuff. It's 
handy when you have multiple people working concurrently but not 
simultaneously to have version control built in that you don't have to 
understand how to work. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Last time I checked, if you want an office suite, you can buy MS Office
> or...
> 
> ...uh, yeah, exactly. It's not that MS Office is good enough that nobody
> will pay to switch. It's that there's nothing to switch *to*. Like I
> say, MS carefully arranges it so that users have no alternatives. That
> way they don't have to waste money on, say, making a product that people
> want to use.

I was reading the Wikipedia article on real-time multi-user text editors, 
and it was a bit disturbing.

"a product called Writely saw explosive user growth and was bought by Google 
in March 2006 (now called Google Docs & Spreadsheets). It provides 
simultaneous edits on the entirety of a document, though changes from other 
users are only reflected after the client program polling the server."

"Another early web-based solution was JotSpotLive, in which line-by-line 
simultaneous editing was available in near-realtime. However, after Google's 
purchase of parent company JotSpot in November 2006, the site was closed."

"EtherPad was the first web editor to provide a smooth, character-by-
character real-time performance, something that previously was only 
available in desktop editors. [...] EtherPad was subsequently acquired by 
Google, which allocated the EtherPad team to work within the Wave project."

What's next? Hiring the entire 0x539.de dev group so they stop working on 
Gobby? (*open source* realtime editor)

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>>>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>>>>> *care* any more...
>>>>  Especially since they released it for free more than eight years
>>>>  ago...
>>>
>>> ...really??
>>>
>>> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
>> 
>> No, your copy is still illegal...
> 
> Awww! :-(

But now you can throw it away and *then* download their free version.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
>> The version I use does that.
> 
> Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers
> with
> exactly this sort of thing.  I ranted here, and about two days later,
> suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I don't know
> what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it was, but
> somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to put the
> cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me. I must
> have unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or something,
> because it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it did.

Being a Mercurial fan and Git hater, I was recently forced (once again) to 
use git, and I don't know *how*, my brain suddenly finished forming a 
complete mental model mirroring how git works. And it's like I suddenly know 
how to use it. I guess I already managed to learn most of it over time, what 
happened recently was that the puzzle pieces got put together.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most*
>> people didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a
>> list editor. MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations,
>> while 1-2-3 added a whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel
>> won.
> 
> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
> 
> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! >_< If you need a database, for the love of
> God, USE A DATABASE! GRR!!
> 
> Sorry, rant over...

I once searched in Google for "excel database", trying to find a funny rant 
I had read about the stupid term. Instead, I found tons of tutorials on how 
to make excel databases. AUGH ><

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
> 
> With the help pages! :-) COM is the substrate that connects things
> together.
> 
> (I think I posted a link recently of someone showing how to use VBScript
> to talk to a DB and put it into Excel, make a chart, and use the clipboard
> to paste it into a word doc.)
> 
> Does OpenOffice actually have any sort of scripting built in, or
> interfaces that you can drive externally?

There is a module called "uno" that lets you talk to OpenOffice from Python.

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Python

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> There is a module called "uno" that lets you talk to OpenOffice from Python.

I see. Looks like they're basically reinventing COM and CORBA without 
following any actual standards, like COM or CORBA.  It's a start, I guess. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:web.4beaea3a4c27b058ae92d9930@news.povray.org...
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> > OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right
> > now? ;-)
>
> **me too**
>
> It's unfortunate, though, that large corporations in the modern world
don't have
> MORE Babbage types working for them (with the freedom to keep pushing for
> changes and improvements); it sure would eliminate lots of bad products

as well as good products

> from
> entering the marketplace--cars, software, etc.  Taking the time to
actually get
> it 'right' in the first place seems to be a lost philosophy, among many
> companies...whether due to economic constraints or whatever. Something
Babbage
> apparently didn't have to worry about.

Big part of "right" is "time" and "compromise". Any half assed product today
is worth infinitely more to me than a perfect product in 50 years, when I'll
most likely be worm fodder. Like it or not, we owe our current way of life
to quick development and turnaround times due to tight competition to
marketplace. Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were
improved to the point of having no side effects at all.

Post a reply to this message

>> Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
>> a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
>> commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
>> tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
>> can configure Base to talk to it.
> 
> Um, no, generally the app will list mysql as a requirement, but then will 
> script the building of the database.  Or if it's SQLite, then it's pre-
> created by the application.  Running Linux applications isn't as complex 
> as you seem to think it is.
> 
> And as for the database creation, I tend to use something like Webmin or 
> MySQLAdmin (a PHP interface) which simplifies things.  But I'm also 
> comfortable using the mysql command-line client as well.

I'm not talking about "I installed this application which uses MySQL". 
I'm talking about "I want to use OO Base with a MySQL backend to quickly 
throw together a simple database". MS Access serves this use case much 
better.

> I'm not arguing that.
> 
> Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as easy 
> to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I don't use 
> it that often).

Mmm, OK. I didn't know that.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Looks like they're basically reinventing COM and CORBA without 
> following any actual standards, like COM or CORBA.

Great. It's 8:56 and I've already had my morning LOL! :-D

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Now, some of these may be out of 
> business, but that's not really to the point, because they *were* 
> competition when they were around, and they couldn't compete.

Couldn't compete with MS products? Or couldn't compete with MS's 
underhanded not-strictly-legal anti-competetive practices? That is the 
operative question.

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:

> Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were
> improved to the point of having no side effects at all.

Just as a minor technical point: That's impossible.

There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those 
that have *no* effects.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:55:48 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as
>> easy to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I
>> don't use it that often).
> 
> Mmm, OK. I didn't know that.

As had I not, until I ran oobase and looked at it again.  It's been a 
while.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:03:44 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> somebody wrote:
> 
>> Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were improved to
>> the point of having no side effects at all.
> 
> Just as a minor technical point: That's impossible.
> 
> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
> that have *no* effects.

I think that's somebody's point.  If we waited until the product was 
perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or whatever).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Now, some of these may be out of business, but that's not really to 
>> the point, because they *were* competition when they were around, and 
>> they couldn't compete.
> 
> Couldn't compete with MS products? Or couldn't compete with MS's 
> underhanded not-strictly-legal anti-competetive practices? That is the 
> operative question.

Given that most of those OSes ran on machines where MS-DOS didn't, I'd say 
the former.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

>> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
>> that have *no* effects.
> 
> I think that's somebody's point.

I had to parse that twice! ._.

> If we waited until the product was 
> perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or whatever).

It's not a good analogy. Drugs don't time a long time to ship because it 
takes time to improve them. They take a long time to ship because of all 
the multiple levels of safety testing that have to happen. (Speaking as 
somebody who works for a company in that line of business...)

I don't disagree that it takes time and money to build better software. 
I'm just saying this isn't a good analogy. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 14 May 2010 18:42:49 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
>>> that have *no* effects.
>> 
>> I think that's somebody's point.
> 
> I had to parse that twice! ._.

Yeah, as I wrote it, I thought "this could be quite confusing". ;-)

>> If we waited until the product was
>> perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or
>> whatever).
> 
> It's not a good analogy. Drugs don't time a long time to ship because it
> takes time to improve them. They take a long time to ship because of all
> the multiple levels of safety testing that have to happen. (Speaking as
> somebody who works for a company in that line of business...)
> 
> I don't disagree that it takes time and money to build better software.
> I'm just saying this isn't a good analogy. ;-)

Well, yeah, it's not really a good analogy after a point, but there is a 
sort of iterative process used in developing new drugs, too - I think 
that's what somebody was trying to say. ;-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4bec4c2d$1@news.povray.org...

I don't understand you. First you say

<q>
There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and
implement an alternative office suite. (Apart perhaps from file
compatibilty.) Yet nobody has done this. So everybody has to buy MS
Office, because no alternative exists.
</q>

and then:

> I tried KOffice. It works, but it doesn't seem to *do* very much, and
> it's infuriatingly fiddly to operate. (Especially the spreadsheet. In
> fact, I've yet to find any spreadsheet that works as well as Excel -
> which is worrying, considering that Excel wasn't work fantastically.)

So, when you say there's no alternative to MSOffice, do you mean there's no
alternative to MSOffice that is *as good or better than* MSOffice? Well,
someone has to be the best (at least from individual's POV). MSOffice
doesn't need to be perfect/"fantastic", but if even a career critique like
yourself admits it works the best, then case closed: MS is obviously doing
something right.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4bec5247$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
>
> >   When did that happen?
>
> Ah... 2005? Maybe? I'm not completely sure.
>
> > It either happened a decade ago, or the clerk was
> > really incompetent.
>
> It was definitely after 2000.
>
> >   Most people don't see anything wrong in copying commercial software.
> > Not even if their attitude is put into doubt from a moral and ethical
> > point of view.
> >
> >   What really grinds my gears with that kind of attitude is that it's
> > honest, paying customers who are paying for the software these people
> > are copying for free. These people may make up excuses in their minds
> > that they are just "stealing from a big rich company", when in fact what
> > they are doing is taking advantage of people who actually pay for the
> > software (and keep the "big rich company" alive).
> >
> >   I buy software (mostly games, as everything else is open source), and
> > part of that money I have earned and use to buy this software goes into
> > paying for the people who steal the software. They are abusing *my* hard
> > earned money. And that pisses me off.
>
> Yeah, I dislike illegally copying anything. Like, given the choice
> between copying one of my dad's CDs or just buying one for myself, I'd
> rather go buy myself one.
>
> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
> *care* any more...

Probably not, as it sold out its compiler tools to Embarcadero and got
bought out itself. I hardly need to buy software anymore except for a few,
and Delphi used to be one of them. For all else, there are free and OS
alternatives. I do think, however, programmers have shot themselves in the
foot with the free software movement. No other professional segment is
foolish enough to give away their work for free.

Post a reply to this message

somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> No other professional segment is
> foolish enough to give away their work for free.

  Yeah, no other professional segment does things pro bono... Wait.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 13/05/2010 8:26 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
> *care* any more...

I just found out last week that there is a free (even for commercial 
use) explorer version. (<Borland> Embarcadero Turbo C++)
I think the link below is it.
http://altd.embarcadero.com/download/bcppbuilder/freecommandLinetools.exe


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 5/15/2010 8:07 PM, somebody wrote:
> "Orchid XP v8"<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote in message
> news:4bec5247$1@news.povray.org...
>> Warp wrote:
>>
>>>    When did that happen?
>>
>> Ah... 2005? Maybe? I'm not completely sure.
>>
>>> It either happened a decade ago, or the clerk was
>>> really incompetent.
>>
>> It was definitely after 2000.
>>
>>>    Most people don't see anything wrong in copying commercial software.
>>> Not even if their attitude is put into doubt from a moral and ethical
>>> point of view.
>>>
>>>    What really grinds my gears with that kind of attitude is that it's
>>> honest, paying customers who are paying for the software these people
>>> are copying for free. These people may make up excuses in their minds
>>> that they are just "stealing from a big rich company", when in fact what
>>> they are doing is taking advantage of people who actually pay for the
>>> software (and keep the "big rich company" alive).
>>>
>>>    I buy software (mostly games, as everything else is open source), and
>>> part of that money I have earned and use to buy this software goes into
>>> paying for the people who steal the software. They are abusing *my* hard
>>> earned money. And that pisses me off.
>>
>> Yeah, I dislike illegally copying anything. Like, given the choice
>> between copying one of my dad's CDs or just buying one for myself, I'd
>> rather go buy myself one.
>>
>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>> *care* any more...
>
> Probably not, as it sold out its compiler tools to Embarcadero and got
> bought out itself. I hardly need to buy software anymore except for a few,
> and Delphi used to be one of them. For all else, there are free and OS
> alternatives. I do think, however, programmers have shot themselves in the
> foot with the free software movement. No other professional segment is
> foolish enough to give away their work for free.
>
Yeah. It makes much more sense to do what all those "paid" people do, 
which is publish something like a simple 2-3 function API for $200, 
which some hobbyist can't fracking afford to buy 20 libraries, just to 
do stuff that, yes, would take time to work out, but a) they would get 
screwed over anyway, due to patents, if they published their own, and b) 
would take, due to bad documentation, a lot of time to work out how to 
manage. If you honestly don't think that is an issue, consider that I am 
not talking about like.. buying a full application. I am talking about 
someone writing 20 lines of fracking code, which just happen to be very 
obscure, then selling it for $200, because they know that anyone else 
trying to do it would take weeks, or months, trying to either 
experiment, or hunt down what *vague* documentation exists on how to 
actually use the feature of the OS in question.

In other words, we are talking about the equivalent of the guy that 
invented the paper clip deciding to sell them at $200 a copy, instead of 
2 cents. What is foolish is an industry which, at this point, costs you 
20% of your profits, ***just*** to fend off "possible" litigation over 
patents, with 10,000 more vague, imprecise, and possibly infringed in 
the future, patents coming out **each day**. So, you had to pay out 20%, 
the next guy, in 10 years, 30%, the next, in 20 years, 40%, etc., all 
because they are vague, don't require a "physical" object to prove them, 
are not properly reviewed, and there are already so many of the damn 
things that it would take you 5 years to just search them all, if you 
did **nothing else**, including write the software you intended to, but 
had to do patent searches on *first*.

The FOSS people have even come up with a solution to this BS, straight 
out of the cold war, "Mutually assured bankruptcy". If you plan to 
patent everything in sight, we will start patenting everything it sight 
too, and when its all over, we will see how many companies, including 
ours, still exist, when we someone gets stupid, and we fire off all of 
the patent nukes."

If we had had patents back during the original colonies, or earlier, it 
wouldn't be Microsoft we would be complaining about, it would be 
something like "East India Company", and the mess of patents involved 
would, maybe, have made both world wars less likely, since those would 
have undermines business, but we would be damn lucky if we where not 
hearing headlines like, "5/16/2010: East India sues Hudson Bay over 
Babbage patents, ENIAC project put on hold.", if we where **lucky**.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> If we had had patents back during the original colonies, or earlier,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#History

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On 5/16/2010 1:10 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> If we had had patents back during the original colonies, or earlier,
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#History
>
Let me rephrase... If they had the kind of idiot patents we now see in 
Software, where you can make it stupidly vague, describe a set of 
instructions, rather than a physical thing, then sue everyone that even 
*sort of* does the same thing...

Good example, from the video. You have two data sets. Say X1, X2, X3. 
One is liking pets, second is "affectionate", third is.. I don't know, 
favorite color = red. You also also have the same data from someone 
else, Y1, Y2, Y3. You then so a fairly uncomplicated comparison on them. 
Nope, no patent here. Now.. ***Name*** the variables, say, Zip, Zop, and 
Zap. Put out a patent that says, "Comparing Zip, Zop and Zap to find 
"compatibility" between individuals with those traits, and suddenly it 
**is** patentable. You named them after all, which, according to the 
argument that led to most of this BS, makes the process "unique", not 
just basic fracking boolean math on a matrix of values.

This is how damn stupid things are right now. And, if you make it vague 
enough, you get some damn silly lawsuits, and people actually *winning*, 
or getting settlements, on the basis of such nonsense. You can't produce 
an inexpensive alternative to product X, if simply marketing it means 
you have to spent a million dollars to pay off all the people that show 
up to say, "Heh! We think that falls under out patents!"

Its irrelevant that, at one time, patents actually worked. Since they 
didn't allow the kinds of patents, until ****very recently****, that we 
see in software.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On 17-5-2010 22:19, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 5/16/2010 1:10 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> If we had had patents back during the original colonies, or earlier,
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#History
>>

Typical example of WIME (Wikipedia Is Your Enemy). You are not supposed 
to make claims that are factually wrong, not even jokingly, not even if 
everybody understands what you mean :(

> Let me rephrase... If they had the kind of idiot patents we now see in 
> Software, where you can make it stupidly vague, describe a set of 
> instructions, rather than a physical thing, then sue everyone that even 
> *sort of* does the same thing...
> 
> Good example, from the video. You have two data sets. Say X1, X2, X3. 
> One is liking pets, second is "affectionate", third is.. I don't know, 
> favorite color = red. You also also have the same data from someone 
> else, Y1, Y2, Y3. You then so a fairly uncomplicated comparison on them. 
> Nope, no patent here. Now.. ***Name*** the variables, say, Zip, Zop, and 
> Zap. Put out a patent that says, "Comparing Zip, Zop and Zap to find 
> "compatibility" between individuals with those traits, and suddenly it 
> **is** patentable. You named them after all, which, according to the 
> argument that led to most of this BS, makes the process "unique", not 
> just basic fracking boolean math on a matrix of values.
> 
> This is how damn stupid things are right now. And, if you make it vague 
> enough, you get some damn silly lawsuits, and people actually *winning*, 
> or getting settlements, on the basis of such nonsense. You can't produce 
> an inexpensive alternative to product X, if simply marketing it means 
> you have to spent a million dollars to pay off all the people that show 
> up to say, "Heh! We think that falls under out patents!"
> 
> Its irrelevant that, at one time, patents actually worked. Since they 
> didn't allow the kinds of patents, until ****very recently****, that we 
> see in software.
>

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Good example, from the video. 

That was a stupid video. Giving them names isn't what made it patentable.


That's like saying "Mixing together chemicals to get a new chemical isn't 
patentable. But specifying *what* chemicals you mix together *is* 
patentable! How stupid is that?"

The patentable part wasn't "describing the data and mixing it together." The 
patentable part was "determining compatibility".

Just like "discrete log isn't the patentable part. Using it to do public key 
encryption is the patentable part."  You can still use discrete log for any 
other purpose.

Now, granted, the patent system may or may not be working. But that video is 
disingenuous in describing *what* part of the system is patented.

I have a patent on sending email. It's for sending email in a certain 
pattern for a certain purpose. That doesn't mean sending email is patented.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On 5/17/2010 3:02 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Good example, from the video.
>
> That was a stupid video. Giving them names isn't what made it patentable.
>
>
> That's like saying "Mixing together chemicals to get a new chemical
> isn't patentable. But specifying *what* chemicals you mix together *is*
> patentable! How stupid is that?"
>
> The patentable part wasn't "describing the data and mixing it together."
> The patentable part was "determining compatibility".
>
> Just like "discrete log isn't the patentable part. Using it to do public
> key encryption is the patentable part." You can still use discrete log
> for any other purpose.
>
> Now, granted, the patent system may or may not be working. But that
> video is disingenuous in describing *what* part of the system is patented.
>
> I have a patent on sending email. It's for sending email in a certain
> pattern for a certain purpose. That doesn't mean sending email is patented.
>
Whether you agree with the video or not, the fact is, often the patents 
are not much *less* vague that the sentence you just used to describe 
them, and, they are damn close to unlimited, in a medium where half of 
them may be of little or no use at all within 5 years. Mind, that 
assumes they are specific. Its possible for one to be vague enough that 
they apply to thing they where never intended to, thus "accidentally" 
making them still useful. Its practically what is intended at this point.

And, no, as the video points out, as long as you don't use the "same" 
data, or the same names, you could, more or less, do the same thing. 
There are more than one site using "compatibility" stuff like it, they 
just are not using the same "specific" ones. Which makes it even more 
damn silly. Because, in this case, you accidentally stumble over the 
exact same criteria, you infringe? Oh, wait, sorry.. You would have had 
to a) read about, b) visited their site, or c) otherwise been anything 
but fracking completely blind, and therefor even remotely aware that 
they had a patent, and what it covered, to "infringe". So.., how exactly 
do you avoid infringing, with that kind of stacked deck? Give me a break.

You may disagree if the video got it 100% right, but you have to 
seriously be a narcissist to fail to grasp that the system has changed 
recently, and that everyone *except* the companies with huge stock piles 
of patents, see them as a detriment (and even a few that do have them 
see them as a pain in the ass too), and its precisely because of the 
mind field like nature of how many there are, and how they are both 
written and interpreted, *as well as* how little effective review takes 
place in determining if they should even be provisionally approved, let 
alone made official.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Kenneth wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> 
>> OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right
>> now? ;-)
> 
> **me too**
> 
> It's unfortunate, though, that large corporations in the modern world don't have
> MORE Babbage types working for them (with the freedom to keep pushing for
> changes and improvements); it sure would eliminate lots of bad products from
> entering the marketplace--cars, software, etc.  Taking the time to actually get
> it 'right' in the first place seems to be a lost philosophy, among many
> companies...whether due to economic constraints or whatever. Something Babbage
> apparently didn't have to worry about.
> 
> Of course, Babbage types need *some* constraints, imposed from
> outside--otherwise, we'd *never* get anything done. It's a tricky trade-off.

There is a line, and it's not always a fine one, between "broken" and 
"could be better."  Too many companies let things that are clearly 
broken (or would be clearly so if they bothered to look) out the door 
because doing nothing pays off now, whereas doing something pays off 
later.  It represents a basic refusal to make doing right by the 
customer the first principle of business.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message