> > From: David Adams <[email protected]> > > For anyone that's seen me on the forums in recent months, let's just > say...what I'm doing isn't working. I keep raising what I think are pretty > basic issues and I just end up with a ton of heat back from 4D and not a > lot of information. It's exhausting and renews my disgust. > [snip] > > Advice appreciated, on-list or off. I know I tend to sound cranky and that > can rub people the wrong way. > [snip] >
David, I do not use the Fr. forums because I honestly cannot understand them any better than you can evidently, nor get any real information from them. Whether that is simply because I'm more used to this list, I can't say, but that forum is totally inscrutable to me. So I'm not familiar with the "heat" you receive over there. That said.... I'm probably not alone in saying that I always look forward to your posts here, whether they have anything to do with my own issues at the moment or not. I always find some nugget that I find thought provoking or useful or worthy of filing away for future use. And generally I just get a kick out of your intellect and ability to delve deeply and let it all hang out. I do find myself worrying about you sometimes though, as to whether you get enough sleep, or just how healthy it might be to go so deep for so long on this or that single issue. Maybe it is just that you are a way faster typist than I am. But ... anyway... I get the feeling that you use 4D (recently at least) for much different projects than I (or most of us?) do. 4D to me, is not a "big data" kind of product. To me it is more like an "office automation" product. A secretarial pool type product. A company or departmental "get this work done like THIS" type product. Whereas (at least recently) I get the impression that you are trying to stuff 4D into some sort of big data manipulation role that might be a pretty frustrating task. And demanding big data tools like you are needing these days might seem a bit off track to the guys in France who have been making this "officey" kind of thing for so many years. I see 4D's real strength in the developer's ability to craft a really high end user interface. But recently you seem to have been frustrated in it's inability to "scale" to something...different -- more "headless" -- something I haven't yet figured out where you are going. Big data dismissals above aside, I'm knee deep for the last two years in a project to digitize USA county courthouses. That means millions and millions and millions of scanned (and then digitized) court documents with massive amounts of data stored in searchable fields whereby ordinary title insurance secretarial types can find (and receive locally) documents they need (for a closing for instance). This requires massive data stores with really easy data access by normal non-tech type people. It requires an extremely facile "database system" that the developer can use to craft multitudes of import routines with a high level scripted environment (every county court clerk has his own ideas about format), as well as an easy user environment for legal expert tech staff to massage that data into usable digital formats -- and an easy way to move that data to web environments to make it available to the hoi polloi. So I understand your frustrations of "big data" needs. (One single state county can entail 12+TB of assets available to 4D!) On the other hand, I don't have to do much with that data - no really complex slice and dice operations; no complicated accounting mathematics; no historical comparison graphing operations, etc. Its "big" data in many ways, but mundane data in most other ways, with most needs tilted toward normal everyday user access. I just cannot find a better platform for all of this together than 4D. (Though I'd be really interested in those products you are turning to as I'm sure some of them might be useful.) I could go in search of multiple products to handle all this data -- but on the whole I want to keep my life simple with ONE product I know really really well. When confronted with a project that would clearly unambiguously demand other systems I'd have to learn well to succeed with, I turn down that project. 4D is not for everything and everyone. Nor am I. I decided long ago that I could not be everything for everyone so.... I decided to be good with one thing and pretty thin on other things. Sort of the opposite of your typical computer science program these days. And somewhat different from your own quest lately to be really good at EVERYTHING, it sometimes sounds like. That is what I love about your posts, but what I also worry about for you when I read those long beautiful emails you send out. Like your brain is on overdrive. Like I could never get work done and write that much unless I never slept and was a super fast typist. I admire that about you. But... to get back to your core point, I think you are demanding that France come up with a product that does everything for everyone. That has GOT to be frustrating. 4D is not and cannot and will not be everything for everyone. Everything about 4D screams "user interface usability". NOT "big data enterprise repository", which seems to be the thing you are in to these days. Yeah, gotta be mutually frustrating. Especially for 4D internally when confronted with negative feedback from a very savvy, very intellectual, obviously advanced, and publicly known and admired user like you. So... you asked.... my advice.... find the products that are made for what you need, learn them and master them for the task they were invented for, and don't try to stuff 4D into a usage it is not suited for. No need to diss it when it cannot, will not, and need not fit your specific current need when other products are better fitted, invented, and developed specially for those needs. --------------------- Steve Simpson Cimarron Software ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) FAQ: http://lists.4d.com/faqnug.html Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: http://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:[email protected] **********************************************************************
