 | |
Mvbase or D3 on Microsoft Win 2003 SBS
comp.databases.pick comp.databases.pick
 |
| | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#21
 
| |||
| |||
|
Re: Mvbase or D3 on Microsoft Win 2003 SBS -
08-07-2006
, 12:11 PM
|
Picking up on the marketing of OpenQM - I think it is about time that Ladybridge started at least marketing hard to the existing MV marketplace that QM is here, it's stable, it works, it's easy to port to, and it's going places. |
couple of articles including one on just how easy it is to migrate.
I found the comment interesting somewhere earlier in this thread that
"rapidly developing" might be interpreted as meaning "incomplete". Not
at all. QM has all the major functionality you would expect from an mv
database product. The new developments tend to be adding things that
are unique to QM, taking mv into places it has not been before. I wish
I was a little more free to talk about some of the radical things our
clients are doing but I need their permission to do this.
Martin Phillips, Ladybridge Systems.
#22
| |||
| |||
|
|
Picking up on the marketing of OpenQM - I think it is about time that Ladybridge started at least marketing hard to the existing MV marketplace that QM is here, it's stable, it works, it's easy to port to, and it's going places. We are embarking on a series of ads in Spectrum and, hopefully, a couple of articles including one on just how easy it is to migrate. I found the comment interesting somewhere earlier in this thread that "rapidly developing" might be interpreted as meaning "incomplete". Not at all. QM has all the major functionality you would expect from an mv database product. The new developments tend to be adding things that are unique to QM, taking mv into places it has not been before. I wish I was a little more free to talk about some of the radical things our clients are doing but I need their permission to do this. Martin Phillips, Ladybridge Systems. |
#23
| |||
| |||
|
|
Bruce Nichol wrote: Tony wrote: I think there are people who have been on the fence about migrating to U2 due to its complexities ... What complexities? Be realistic. Conversion of an existing Pick environment to Pick flavour UV is about the smallest "conversion" step anybody would ever have to make. Yep! Been there, done that. Getting used to the simplicity of it all in UV might be the most difficult part..... BSCAN and SETPTR is about it.... and neither of them, or none of it, needs rocket science.... Nor brain surgery... Just the desire, for whatever reason that drives you, to MAKE it happen Our experiences are apparently vastly different. Here's a brain dump of how I see U2 vs the other MV environments (it occurs to me that many people can probably relate to my catharsis here): Sometimes the language used in the U2 forum is completely foreign to me - and remember, I've spent considerable time with a whole lot of MV platforms over the years. One of the ways I learn about technology is to subscribe to related forums and watch people banter. Over time the language gets more familiar and I start to recognize common topics, issues, etc. I imagine CDP is good for this as well. Anyway, sometimes it's easy to forget that people in the U2 forum are even using an MV environment when one reads about their problems and how they go about solving them. I often think U2 people are less "MV" than the rest of us, that the MV-ness is acknowledged but that they see their environment as being nothing but U2 and that similarities with MV are only coincidental. Maybe that's the Prime bias. Whenever I try to use the U2 environments I trip on the keyboard: verbs have changed, casing is more important, options have changed, the stacker is different (its old and still sucks), new commands are required to do familiar functions, completely new commands and files and features are present which should be learned. (A comment from Symeon on my blog recently prompted me to do more research into the _PH_ and &PH& files and I realized how ignorant I was of COMO details and phantom processing). No, I'd maintain that the U2 environments are very different from the R83 family, and probably the only way to really learn them is to just shutdown the old environment and pretend there's no going back - for a while anyway, and a couple of our colleagues who have done just that (through a job change) have said it wasn't that painful for them. I can't afford to do that, no one is paying me to immerse myself in some new environment. Maybe this is the core of my own MV-ness - I'm adverse to radical change and U2 is just too far out of my comfort zone. I don't want it to be just like some familiar environment (as you describe for some people's approach to QM) but if I'm going to adopt a completely new platform like this, I'm much more inclined to migrate completely away. This is precisely one of the reasons why I've gone down this Microsoft path over the last few years. If I'm going to re-invent myself, it's not going to be with yet another completely foreign MV environment, I'm going mainstream. I think the reason we haven't seen more migrations to QM so far is that the platform is still in heavy development If this is "heavy development" I hope it's never finished. We're being provided with the things we ask for.....as we ask for them. Not the things we must have to start making new things.... I'm sure that's the case but I don't think that's the common understanding out here in the non-QM world. I could be wrong but I get the impression most people see QM as "OpenQM", as a development environment, and the production-quality for real users seems to be understated. and this market is in a mode to wait and see other sites go production, and to ensure there are no major snaffu's with the business or technical model. Well, perhaps I'm invisible. We've got sites "in production". This is a textbook case of happy MV people simply not translating the experience into "marketing" to attract others. Don't feel bad, I think most everyone in this MV market has the same DNA sequence which causes us to exhibit this trait. ... (That's "fun" with a capital "F") I think some of this Fun is what business people tend to avoid. We/They don't want Fun when it comes to conversions, especially with end-user sites. I understand that your experience is that migrations have been relatively easy, but in explaining how easy it has been you're pointing out a lot of things that the rest of us see as core components. While we might be wrong to hold them dear, converting away from them only translates to a cost of time and money - and that's what I/we think about for any migration effort. I look forward to hearing about more migration experiences, the quick successes, etc, but when _I_ feel that I can do this I will feel a lot more comfortable than when I just hear that _you_ can do it. This is where marketing comes in again - conveying that "can do" attitude is critical or people simply aren't going to move. It's nice, too, listening to our users compliment us on our "mouse awareness", among other things...... "Very simple" "That works well" "It all makes sense" sort of stuff..... No, it's not AccuTerm "gui-ness", either. It's ours. And it's simple. And the people like it..... That's a great start at marketing but it's not entirely pertinent for this audience. (I know you're just being encouraging, not "marketing" per se.) You're talking to people who need to do the migrations here, and support the platform after the fact. End-users who don't care about what's under the covers and don't ever see the procs or A-correlatives, etc, but _we_ need to deal with this stuff head-on. But, for the past 12 months or more, nobody out there in MV-land has asked us about the pluses/minuses of conversion. That may confirm my suspicions that people are in a watch and wait mode. I think the new wiki will help to make people more comfortable with those things that they were unsure about before. I know I'll be relying on it alot, and hopefully contributing my experience as well. what is really wanted is a "for-free" path, or a "do it for me" path, or preferably, both paths simultaneously, and "for free" on Linux, too..... They're not prepared to MAKE it happen. And, I have simply put up the shutters..... If you are not prepared to invest a little, be it time or be it money, then I feel for you, but I have more important things in my schedule.... Sounds like something I'd write.  I sincerely doubt that many of the "empty vessels" will ever make the transition. Tire kickers seem to be present in all markets. But, I understand the qiuiet achievers are doing well.... That's great but the MV market continues to shrink because we're all quiet achievers. MV vendors who wish to stay in this business (all of them) can only hope to attract new clients via migration if they actively make a case for their product, make information readily available, and provide tools, education, and services to facilitate migration. Without these things I think most developers will be content to remain on the fence simply because they are not being compelled From one place or To another. And to keep this vaguely on-topic, this comes back to my comment that unless the OP has reason to migrate from mvBASE or D3, he probably shouldn't just for this SBS2003 initiative. Work with what you can. Don't worry that somebody calls it DataBasic or whatever. Develop your own "best practices". If you need somebody else's "best practices" to remain in business, then perhaps you shouldn't be in business in the first place. You'll learn to adapt to what makes you money, or you'll give it all away - or have it all taken away from you! It really is *that* simple. Perhaps those not in business can afford the luxury of looking for the saving of a millisecond in run-time, but I can't. The bloody thing works; response times are more than acceptable; leave it alone..... Go out and sell it.. Get it out there. Get on with the next one.... Right on. Fun discussion, thanks. T |
#24
| |||
| |||
|
|
A good case study is always worth a thousand ads! "None" <MartinPhillips (AT) ladybridge (DOT) com> wrote Picking up on the marketing of OpenQM - I think it is about time that Ladybridge started at least marketing hard to the existing MV marketplace that QM is here, it's stable, it works, it's easy to port to, and it's going places. We are embarking on a series of ads in Spectrum and, hopefully, a couple of articles including one on just how easy it is to migrate. I found the comment interesting somewhere earlier in this thread that "rapidly developing" might be interpreted as meaning "incomplete". Not at all. QM has all the major functionality you would expect from an mv database product. The new developments tend to be adding things that are unique to QM, taking mv into places it has not been before. I wish I was a little more free to talk about some of the radical things our clients are doing but I need their permission to do this. |
Allow me to offer a brief description of personal experience with OpenQM in
a Production Environment.
<full disclosure mode=on>
I do not know Martin personally and I am not a QM dealer, I have no vested
interest in any current flavor of MV.
<full disclosure mode=off>
I have been working with a company in central California for several months
that is using OpenQM v2.2-9 on MS Advanced Server 2000. The software is a
medical business office application written by a developer in the SF Bay
area. This particular application is using VB6 on the client side (not my
choice, but not my product either) with standard IP connections to the host.
The QM side of this application has been very stable and predictable
throughout the development and installation process with only minor hiccups
in the beginning (over a year ago.) Martin has been very responsive to
questions and challenges from the developer and the end users do not know
(or care) what is running the data base on the back end.
Almost all of the problems have come from the MS VB side of the application
where not all desktops are running the same versions of Windoze, or updates
to the software require the entire new VB application to be downloaded to
each desktop. These types of issues are avoided by using an emulator
(AccuTerm) or a browser interface (DesignBais). As I have pointed out
elsewhere, the only QM related issues revolve around the spooler (or lack
thereof) and are easily handled through the use of a central print server,
which could process images better than most MV spoolers anyway.
The price/performance comparison for OpenQM is among the best available
today for any environment. Anyone starting new development (or migrations)
should definitely look closely at QM and perhaps even add a 4GL like Nucleus
to make application design and implementation faster still.
BFaux ;-)
#25
| |||
| |||
|
|
These posts gave a belly laugh! -how many times have I heard that the reason my horrendous conversions to jbase was because I "didn't take the time to learn jbase". How about your " I can't afford to do that, no one is paying me to immerse myself in some new environment!" Well said! And this: "Maybe this is the core of my own MV-ness - I'm adverse to radical change and U2 is just too far out of my comfort zone." -after consistently defending the idiotic and *deliberate* irritations that are part of jbase (well maybe not you exclusively, but that was the tenor of previous defend-jbase-at-all-odds threads).. Simon suggests that "jbase being different and fiddly"...is untrue but accepted because presumably cdp, like Fox News, has repeated falsehoods until they are the accepted wisdom. Do we really have that much power? Finally "I think some of this Fun is what business people tend to avoid." I knew that was a reason I don't hang out with any business people! (otoh, was not the Fun being had by the converter, not the sour-faced owner? Anything wrong with enjoying one's work?) Thanks for making my day brighter! Chandru Murthi "Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote in message news:3mbdd2h4qjha07gmummrh8gcqtlfv1vpi3 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com... Bruce Nichol wrote: Tony wrote: I think there are people who have been on the fence about migrating to U2 due to its complexities ... What complexities? Be realistic. Conversion of an existing Pick environment to Pick flavour UV is about the smallest "conversion" step anybody would ever have to make. Yep! Been there, done that. Getting used to the simplicity of it all in UV might be the most difficult part..... BSCAN and SETPTR is about it.... and neither of them, or none of it, needs rocket science.... Nor brain surgery... Just the desire, for whatever reason that drives you, to MAKE it happen Our experiences are apparently vastly different. Here's a brain dump of how I see U2 vs the other MV environments (it occurs to me that many people can probably relate to my catharsis here): Sometimes the language used in the U2 forum is completely foreign to me - and remember, I've spent considerable time with a whole lot of MV platforms over the years. One of the ways I learn about technology is to subscribe to related forums and watch people banter. Over time the language gets more familiar and I start to recognize common topics, issues, etc. I imagine CDP is good for this as well. Anyway, sometimes it's easy to forget that people in the U2 forum are even using an MV environment when one reads about their problems and how they go about solving them. I often think U2 people are less "MV" than the rest of us, that the MV-ness is acknowledged but that they see their environment as being nothing but U2 and that similarities with MV are only coincidental. Maybe that's the Prime bias. Whenever I try to use the U2 environments I trip on the keyboard: verbs have changed, casing is more important, options have changed, the stacker is different (its old and still sucks), new commands are required to do familiar functions, completely new commands and files and features are present which should be learned. (A comment from Symeon on my blog recently prompted me to do more research into the _PH_ and &PH& files and I realized how ignorant I was of COMO details and phantom processing). No, I'd maintain that the U2 environments are very different from the R83 family, and probably the only way to really learn them is to just shutdown the old environment and pretend there's no going back - for a while anyway, and a couple of our colleagues who have done just that (through a job change) have said it wasn't that painful for them. I can't afford to do that, no one is paying me to immerse myself in some new environment. Maybe this is the core of my own MV-ness - I'm adverse to radical change and U2 is just too far out of my comfort zone. I don't want it to be just like some familiar environment (as you describe for some people's approach to QM) but if I'm going to adopt a completely new platform like this, I'm much more inclined to migrate completely away. This is precisely one of the reasons why I've gone down this Microsoft path over the last few years. If I'm going to re-invent myself, it's not going to be with yet another completely foreign MV environment, I'm going mainstream. I think the reason we haven't seen more migrations to QM so far is that the platform is still in heavy development If this is "heavy development" I hope it's never finished. We're being provided with the things we ask for.....as we ask for them. Not the things we must have to start making new things.... I'm sure that's the case but I don't think that's the common understanding out here in the non-QM world. I could be wrong but I get the impression most people see QM as "OpenQM", as a development environment, and the production-quality for real users seems to be understated. and this market is in a mode to wait and see other sites go production, and to ensure there are no major snaffu's with the business or technical model. Well, perhaps I'm invisible. We've got sites "in production". This is a textbook case of happy MV people simply not translating the experience into "marketing" to attract others. Don't feel bad, I think most everyone in this MV market has the same DNA sequence which causes us to exhibit this trait. ... (That's "fun" with a capital "F") I think some of this Fun is what business people tend to avoid. We/They don't want Fun when it comes to conversions, especially with end-user sites. I understand that your experience is that migrations have been relatively easy, but in explaining how easy it has been you're pointing out a lot of things that the rest of us see as core components. While we might be wrong to hold them dear, converting away from them only translates to a cost of time and money - and that's what I/we think about for any migration effort. I look forward to hearing about more migration experiences, the quick successes, etc, but when _I_ feel that I can do this I will feel a lot more comfortable than when I just hear that _you_ can do it. This is where marketing comes in again - conveying that "can do" attitude is critical or people simply aren't going to move. It's nice, too, listening to our users compliment us on our "mouse awareness", among other things...... "Very simple" "That works well" "It all makes sense" sort of stuff..... No, it's not AccuTerm "gui-ness", either. It's ours. And it's simple. And the people like it..... That's a great start at marketing but it's not entirely pertinent for this audience. (I know you're just being encouraging, not "marketing" per se.) You're talking to people who need to do the migrations here, and support the platform after the fact. End-users who don't care about what's under the covers and don't ever see the procs or A-correlatives, etc, but _we_ need to deal with this stuff head-on. But, for the past 12 months or more, nobody out there in MV-land has asked us about the pluses/minuses of conversion. That may confirm my suspicions that people are in a watch and wait mode. I think the new wiki will help to make people more comfortable with those things that they were unsure about before. I know I'll be relying on it alot, and hopefully contributing my experience as well. what is really wanted is a "for-free" path, or a "do it for me" path, or preferably, both paths simultaneously, and "for free" on Linux, too..... They're not prepared to MAKE it happen. And, I have simply put up the shutters..... If you are not prepared to invest a little, be it time or be it money, then I feel for you, but I have more important things in my schedule.... Sounds like something I'd write. I sincerely doubt that many of the "empty vessels" will ever make the transition. Tire kickers seem to be present in all markets. But, I understand the qiuiet achievers are doing well.... That's great but the MV market continues to shrink because we're all quiet achievers. MV vendors who wish to stay in this business (all of them) can only hope to attract new clients via migration if they actively make a case for their product, make information readily available, and provide tools, education, and services to facilitate migration. Without these things I think most developers will be content to remain on the fence simply because they are not being compelled From one place or To another. And to keep this vaguely on-topic, this comes back to my comment that unless the OP has reason to migrate from mvBASE or D3, he probably shouldn't just for this SBS2003 initiative. Work with what you can. Don't worry that somebody calls it DataBasic or whatever. Develop your own "best practices". If you need somebody else's "best practices" to remain in business, then perhaps you shouldn't be in business in the first place. You'll learn to adapt to what makes you money, or you'll give it all away - or have it all taken away from you! It really is *that* simple. Perhaps those not in business can afford the luxury of looking for the saving of a millisecond in run-time, but I can't. The bloody thing works; response times are more than acceptable; leave it alone..... Go out and sell it.. Get it out there. Get on with the next one.... Right on. Fun discussion, thanks. T |
|
« Previous Thread
|
Next Thread »
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
Linear Mode
| |
Powered by vBulletin Version 3.5.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2000 - 2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.