FW: fPSA

[John Esak]

> A couple of points I'd like to address:
>
> 1) You say that the alternative solutions won't just "come to you".
> However, you already acknowledge 20+ years' (probably over 25, I'd wager)
> experience with filePro.  I can assure you that while I knew
> BASIC, Pascal,
> and C, as well as several shell languages when I started with fP in 1993,
> filePro itself did not just "come to me".  And its likelihood of doing so
> seems to vary as an inverse proportionate to how many other structured
> languages you already know.  Nancy Palmquist has repeatedly told me that
> the people that really have the most problems with fP -are-
> people like me,
> who come in from other languages.  While this "coming to you" bit after 20
> years of experience is fine for the entrenched crowd, it's off-putting to
> fresh blood that might come into the scene late.  And 1993 was already
> late--it's now twelve years later still.

No, no, no. I meant that *after* 20 years of programming in filepro, design
and coding just "come-to-me". I did not mean that filePro lends itself to
that particularly... that is of course, unless you were to take a week and
run through the filePro Survivor Series Tutorials first. :-) :-) :-) :-) (Is
this enough smiley's to compensate for that??  I couldn't resist.)

>
>
> 2) Learning how to make Perl run with MySQL doesn't take a lifetime.  Not
> even close.  I started with perl, went through the "Learning Perl" book
> in about a month on and off in my spare time, wrote some utilities and
> applications, and then bought the O'Reilly MySQL book maybe six months
> later when I wanted to expand.  I totally ignored their DBI implementation
> for perl as presented in the book, instead using the book to learn MySQL
> itself (having been a -complete- newcomer to SQL of any flavour).  I used
> the DBD::mysql module instead, and I was up and running with perl
> and MySQL
> within a few days, and corrected some mislearned programatic behaviours
> over the next month.  Writing a database-driven web forum system is good
> practise and experience for combining the two.  If you have the will to
> learn it, it's really not difficult.  I honestly found it easier to learn
> that combination than I did to learn filePro.  The documentation available
> is certainly better than what I saw with fP Plus v4.1 with the big black
> binder manual.  Docs were half the problem with fP, I think--or lack of
> decent ones at that time.  Haven't looked at modern versions, so

Just so. In fact, this is exactly what you were saying to _me_ in your first
point, but see it from my perspective. You just mention that you already
knew several languages, C, Pascal, etc., and several shells... *then* you
picked up PERL and flew with it quickly in a month or so... even a week I
think you said. Well, seriously, do you think a neophyte who knows nothing
about any programming could pick up PERL in a week or a month even... nah, I
don't think so. There are way too many other disciplines that need to be
under your belt first. Not to mention plain system/file O/S knowledge.
Again, I think with equal starting points... no programming whatever and a
week to learn it... filePro would have you writing apps quicker than PERL
and MySQL... by far.  (Especially if you took the FSS Tutorials... okay,
okay, just kidding..)  But seriously, I agree with you that anything can be
learned if the docs are good... and filePro's are very scattered. There
isn't even an alphabetical listing of things grouped in any meaningful
order. On a one to one comparison, I'd rather learn something like PERL from
scratch, which has all the docs and mailing groups in the world to help...
One up for PERL, one down for filePro, I have to admit this. However, I had
to comment on this paragraph of yours so that I could mention that this is
the second time within a week that I've seen you misspell practice. :-)  Not
like you. :-)

>  The main difference is really body versus engine, to use an analogy.

I like your whole body/engine thing... but these days, I try avoiding talk
of bodies as much as possible. :-) I just need another two weeks on my
diet... or two months... :-)

John