I'd like to 2nd John's comment's (well, he and I have known each other for awhile...<bg>...)...but I'd agree -- the environment / development platform is key -- the accounting part we can decide for ourselves whether to share or whatever...but good, clean developement tools are critical.
Josh wrote: >Howdy All, > >As someone who's been lurking for a while, I'd like to share some >interesting thoughts and questions I have about Dabo. This is more of a >philosophical muse than anything, but potentially important nevertheless. >I started thinking about this whilst chatting with Brad Pepers at >LinuxCanada about their GPL'd accounting application; my thoughts were >also seeded by a few recent articles (can't remember url's offhand) about >the lack of Linux adoption by SME's due to the lack of vertical market >applications. (For example, if you run a veterinary office there are many >different windows applications you can choose from; none for Linux. Same >for pizza shops, car sales, etc.) > >The main reason for the lack of Linux vertical apps is that many >developers consider Microsoft's .NET tools to be vastly superior as far as >rapid development. They may or may not be right (and honestly, I haven't >found RAD tools for Linux that compare to .NET). Aside from Java, there >is one environment that I've used: Rekall. Recall is much like MS-Access >(but based on Python and Qt) and was sold commercially for a while. The >commercial venture faltered, but the GPL version of the tool continues to >be available (but not supported for more than a year) at >http://www.rekallrevealed.org. It was very mature and worked well >(including a GUI designer and report writer), but being based on Qt, you >had to pay license fees to deploy your app on Windows. I had toyed with >the idea of porting this to wxWidgets, but then I found Dabo. > >So, I wonder, how much more work is involved in making Dabo up to par with >where Rekall was? What about if we add other Python-based components, >such as Stani's Python Editor, and one of the visual wxPython-based GUI >editors? If we do so, we make a giant leap in the right direction with >regards to easy cross-platform RAD. > >There is one side-note, however. Even if we have the best RAD, developing >in Python may be a turn-off for commercial app developers because it's >nary impossible to obfuscate Python code. But, it does open the door for >open source developers to create cross-platform vertical apps. > >But there's another twist. Suppose we were to add a pre-defined set of >Business Objects to our RAD environment, such as Customers, Vendors, >Items, Accounts, Invoices? And, suppose that those business objects just >happened to come with a fully-featured accounting application, on-par with >QuickBooks Enterprise as far as maturity, support, and featureset are >concerned? And suppose it was all free? > >Imagine this. You're designing a new app for your vet's office. In your >GUI editor, you start with the main window of a blank project. To create >a "New Customer Entry Wizard", you simply drag a Customer object from the >Business Object pallette onto the main window, and you're all set. You >press the test button, and you can browse customers that are already in >the accounting app's database with your new wizard. > >I think we can get this functionality, it's just a question of how much >work? > >BTW the accounting app is here: http://www.linuxcanada.com > >Cheers, >-J > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-users Searchable Archives: http://leafe.com/archives/search/dabo-users This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/dabo-users/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
