Bob, with all due respect...

What bothers me about discussions like this is the underlying
sentiment that Pick isput into the same category as BetaMAX and
Fortran. It's written off as legacy by people who claim to support
it. How can MV providers possibly try to sell the model against
competitors when existing user/developers equate the platform to
8-track tape?

MV was and still is an excellent database platform. While it's not
perfect, neither are competitors. I see MV as an ideal solution for
modern development in a world where hard to learn and difficult to use
tools like PHP and MySQL are the defacto standards. Creating a solid
business solution in a scripting language like PHP is insane. Who is
the idiot that put script kiddie web developers in charge of business
rules? We go beyond the LAMP stack by putting our business rules in
fast and stable BASIC. That leaves web developers to work on the UI
and not business rules. That's an advantage folks! Use it!

It's not the MV platform that's deficient, it's the skillset of people
who choose not to use the MV platform in modern development. MV is
just a database, just like mySQL. It can be used in all of the same
kinds of applications that mySQL can - and most of us would argue that
MV can do it better. What's missing is the connecting of dots from
web to the database which is now being taught in grammar schools to
children with tools like PHP and Ruby. We can use those tools with MV
too but people stuck in the past just aren't connecting dots - and
because of that, we see statements that imply there are no dots to be
connected, that the platform itself is a dinosaur. It's unfortunate
that people impose their own lack of skills upon the platform. I've
said before that people who support MV are the worst enemies of the
platform.

T

On 2011-01-12 14:03:08 -0500, Tony Gravagno
<tony_gravagno (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid> said:

Nice.

--
Kevin Powick

On Jan 12, 2:03*pm, Tony Gravagno <tony_grava... (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid>
wrote:
I think that's called denial.

Kevin Powick wrote:

The intent there was not to be all encompassing, but that "Many people
who support MV Can be the worst enemies of the platform". You may
still take issue with that but at least I've claried the intent for
the record.

Bob's response to my note is a perfect example. He says I'm in denial
(about MV already being dead?). I'd call him defeatist on this topic,
and think the attitude creates a self-fulfilling reality. For the
rest of us who use the tools every day in a modern context, there's no
sign of any deficiencies in the platform itself (only the licensing
models applied to it). To bring this back on topic, MV can function
"in the cloud" just like any other platform - and I have cloud
applications to prove it. I don't write apps for heads-down data
entry on a LAN. I'm writing code that is meant to be deployed to an
internet audience on internet servers. I see the MV platform as being
a LOT better for this purpose than mainstream tools. YMMV

T

I am very much with Tony on this one, I have seen this many times over
the past few years and I know of many an MV person who code in ED,
refuse to understand XML or any other 1990's onward technology and
generally show themselves to be Technology Dinosaurs. It is especially
bad as many of them work in IT departments full of dynamic IT
professionals who look after the MSSQl and .net stuff and so look
down on the MV side as old fashioned, not because they understand it
to be archaic, but see the persons working on it to be archaic.

Now on the business side it probably does not matter that a programmer
is not technologically savvy, so long as he does his programming job
well - I am not convinced ...



Symeon.

Symeon wrote:
There's a difference between understanding "what technology can do and
how it's used" versus "how to implement it". We can't be experts on
everything. I think all of us would do well to acknowledge our own
limitations but still be the best people available to recognize when
something new and different fits specific needs. This is where Pick
guys fall short.

Sun Tzu said "Know yourself, know the enemy, know the terrain". Pick
guys generally miss the last two.

"Mainstream guys" don't understand everything out there either, but
they switch from coding logic to business logic and database
management skills to people management skills, and they get the right
people to implement solutions with tools that they themselves can not
use. It's too much of the DIY spirit that makes MV people dinosaurs.
With Pick guys, it's "I do everything or I and my clients will do
nothing". Clients don't buy into that, most clients will not do
nothing, they will just find other vendors. The Pick guys who have
that attitude and survive are simply successful at keeping their
clients as much in the dark as they are.

To keep this on-topic: You don't need to know how the cloud works, (or
web services, telephony, Facebook, or anything else out there). Just
look around to see how others are using it, work out how it applies in
the context of your business app or other traditional deliverables,
then contract, hire, or partner with the right people to deliver
solutions that people want to pay for. Shift from being the coder to
being the manager, and because all of this stuff ultimately works with
Pick you'll be writing code anyway. I have clients who have made this
mental shift and just when it seemed like their services were going to
be obsolete they suddenly got more business - because they didn't feel
like they had to do everything. Maybe I should get one of these folks
into this forum to convey that experience.

T