Antiquated Software

[John Esak]

Just some quick comments...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Terrible [mailto:tony at vegena.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 12:15 PM
> To: john at valar.com
> Cc: File Pro List
> Subject: Re: Antiquated Software
>
>
> John, Thank you for you well written response. I happen to have a
> great deal
> of respect for you as over the years I have seen what you know. I don't
> necessarily disagree with you. Filepro has and did serve us, the

Thanks, and I understand that there are many things working for you better
than filePro. It is gratifying to know that you had needs filePro couldn't
provide answer for and found other solutions. When that happens in our
business, I hope the same will happen for us. :-)

> world well.
> But I believe that it just never kept up with the changing world. Running
> multiple instances of Filepro to me is just not the same thing as
> being able
> to open as many windows as your memory allows with only 1
> connection to the
> data base. In your scenario I would have to double or triple our
> licensees
> for everyone to have that ability. You are right, why replace

Well, one of the improvements in 5.6 which Bud had mentioned he would try to
put in long ago... so I'm not letting anyting out of the bag... is the fact
that if you do one of the things you mentioned earlier (run another filePro
executable like clerk or report from the SYSTEM command..) it will no longer
*count* against your license. Since there *is* a way for filePro to
implement the FacetWin method for not counting multiple license usages from
one PC, I'm hoping that this code can be put into filePro as well. Then, the
use of 4 license cals for one user in our situation would be fixed. As of
now, you're right, this is a problem, hopefully, it will be changed.

[snip]

> into 1 core
> program and made to work seamlessly without the user even knowing what's
> really taking place. Just think of companies like FedEx, UPS, etc. Where
> would they be if they were still using software made before most of your
> employees were born? The service they offer and provide just wouldn't be
> possible. Could the world of Yahoo and Google be possible if everyone had

And just one more silly comment... but it is so funny that you should
mention UPS in your talking points. I swear to God, several of us have been
bitching about UPS in the FP Room for the past two weeks. (Ask Jim Asman or
Tony Ryder if you don't believe me. :-)  The gripe is, that UPS is sending
me (Nexus) a Check Detail report on spreadsheet. It has the check number
listed and the date and amount for their check to us... but it does not have
each invoice listed and how much was paid toward each invoice. This is kind
of *critical* for my mass-payment program... and when I asked UPS for it...
this is what they said... word for word..."We're sorry, but our Oracle
system has no signifier for individual amounts and discounts paid on each
check."  !!!!! I'm not kidding. So aside from just a light reference to the
grass is always greener... it is also roughly (and I mean roughly) important
to mention that one of filePro's original authors left the company 15 years
ago or more to go to work for IBM on a project to develop UPS's *new*
systems. :-)



> stayed with Filepro? What ever you think of Microsoft, the one thing that
> has kept them on top is their ability to keep moving forward. And

Just for the record... I think Microsoft is a fantastic company that has
brought a huge percentage of the modern world *to* the modern world. They
put a PC on everyone's desktop... and not much happened for personal use of
computers until *that* happened.

meahwhile...

Bud (FP Tech spokesperon for now let's say...) has said that a robust XML
interface will be available for filePro at the 5.7 level. I am very anxious
to have that. I'm sure many of us are. We just need to get the user base up
to the licensed platform first. Agreed, this should have been done years and
years ago.

John Esak