Two for the road, Report from Clerk & Nonstandard Subtotals

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Fplist (E-mail)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 3:36 PM
Subject: RE: Two for the road, Report from Clerk & Nonstandard Subtotals


> Jay said...
>
>> > Brian White will make the code available to the list if anyone wants
>> > >it.
>> >
>> > Who wouldn't want this? :-) I look forward to the post. We have been
>> > doing this for about 10 years now. All of our customer required
>> > reports can be faxxed, emailed or printed, with filePro keeping
>> > the email and fax info on file for easy or defaulted retrieval.
>> > Occasionally, we have the need to send out .pdf attachments of our
>> > reports and forms which we accomplish with a rather excellent pcl2pdf
>> > function that we simply purchased. I'm sure there are the usual 100
>> > free linux versions of this tool. As for this kind of functionality in
>> > general, printing to various types of output, well, it was not in the
>> > scope of what I was trying to show, otherwise the message would have
>> > been even longer than it was! So, Brian's disclosure of Howie'e code
>> > on how to do it will be most welcomed by the list I'm sure. Thanks! To
>> > bad you can't issue such orders to Howie, himself... :-)
>>
>> Now, now, John; your snark level is climbing a bit, there.  ;-)
>
> Excuse me?  What in the world could you be talking about. Two things...
> don't know what a snark is, but it sounds "not good"... and don't see what
> you could be implying or inferring. I merely, andclearly I thought, said I
> would love to see some of Howie's tips andtrck tricks up here... and more 
> so
> than Brian's.  Surely, you don't believe their filePro expertise is 
> anywhere
> in the same ballpark do you? My comment, was just aimed to say, hey if you
> can get Brian to dump code and examples up here, it certainly would be 
> great
> if you could get Howie to do the same. I'm wasn't denigrating Brian's
> filePro ability in _any_ way... But Brian has been coding in filePro, when
> he does, for probably only 4 or 5 years. Howie on the other hand... well..
> :-)  So, it was simply a nice comment about Howie, nothing more. I'm a
> little offended that you couched it so differently. Jay, why do you feel 
> the
> need to do that kind of thing ALL the time.  It sure gets old... to me, at
> least.
>
> John

a)
The code he initially promised that I'd post, "destpr", is actually 90% his 
own and maybe 10% mine, I don't think any by Howie. Merely he wants me to 
post it somewhere and provide a link, possibly clean it up a little so it's 
either more self-contained or at least so that any assumptions it makes are 
commented. The other thing he mentioned about the filepro file of saved 
report command lines and options and sample displayer and so on that 
basically takes the place of traditional menu action lines with report 
commands, that is most if not all Howie. I think Tom might have had the idea 
and made the initial screens & file and then Howie made it really good.

Sorry, I completely didn't have time for anything like that today.
That's also why I didn't help Jose get ghostpcl working either, I know it's 
got to be something really simple to clear up. All I do to install it myself 
sometimes several times in a week on boxes ranging from 504 to 507, is untar 
that tar right from my web page using the very instruction I show on the web 
page. The only other requirements are I tend to the dependancies. That is a 
medium sized conversation in itself but even without the gift of my simply 
saying what versions of sco require what packages in what order, and 
further, whats the easiest quickest way to get them, you can still work 
backwards from the admittedly terse directions on my page if you google for 
the locations of the named packages and read their readmes. The necessary 
starting point and pointing finger is provided. I'll provide those details 
later.

>From hearing the conversation on the list, it dosn't sound like our code is 
necessarily all that amazing if so many of you are doing essentially the 
same thing.
I think the main thing in it's favor is probably merely that it works and 
and is (will be) made public so it'll be something to look at (whether as a 
positive or negative example I will not try to assert either way) for those 
who have _not_ been coding for 35 years and wrote their own version 34 years 
ago and surpassed this codes quality 33 1/2 years ago.
Actually, my 10% is utter sublime perfection that will make you weep with 
envy and jealousy to see it, especially when I say I only gave it 10% 
attention and effort and it still came out so achingly elegant.
If you find anything wrong with it, it's really that it's too perfect for 
you to understand. :)
In reality, Howies stuff is the coolest. No surprises there. Unfortunately 
for poor Howie, it's just expected and par for the course for him. He has to 
work actual miracles to get a gold star. All the rest of us  have to do is 
avoid gross errors.

b)
The reason he interpreted your remark as a veiled insult, I would bet is the 
same reason I did.
You seemed to be implying a wrongdoing on Tom's part by phrasing his action 
as ordering Howies code given away.
And probably this part is completely my own hypersensativity, but I also 
perceived a more subtle level of slight to me by a mere choice of phrasing 
that results in an impression of me being ordered around like a ditch 
digger. Perhaps not even a conscious deliberate act, but out of all the ways 
to say any given thing, how one assembes and delivers the message 
(intentionally or not) often says so much and can have anwhere from little, 
to very much, to very much the opposite in common with the nominal message 
but often is right in tune with the speakers feelings.

But I'll accept your last explanation at face value and discard my own 
initial impressions in the light of this new conflicting info since it is 
reasonable. I am being fully honest in this statement because I know 
intimately the weakneses of this medium and how it can result in wild 
fancies just like the previous paragraph if allowed to.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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