Maybe it's a Kansas City thing, cuz it sucks for us as well -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 2:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Reporting tools
Beware. Where ever Crystal treads Evil will certainly follow. I hate CR with a passion. There's a developer I sit next to that we're convinced will go 'Crystal' (instead of postal) soon. I have been desperate enough that I looked for Crystal support groups on the web; not for tech support but just one to share my traumatic experiences with others and find condolence. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, (ATF), should be renamed ATF-CR to account for the danger Crystal poses to the security of this nation. Instead of crack houses they need to start bringing in Swat teams to bust Crystal houses. Hello, my name is Chad and I've been Crystal free for 9 days. Now don't get me wrong, Crystal is a great product. Kind of. It's good for most people because you can use a wizard to create the basic layout of the report and write a qry file to go with it and v�olla you have a professional looking report. The problem is that you have very little flexibility because there isn't any script or code that you can modify. It would be like using FrontPage or VB but you cant change the HTML or code that it generates for you. It is very difficult to make changes to an existing report as well. Unless the changes are minor it is often easier to recreate the report from scratch. The product is also very flaky. The guy who sits next to me had one of his reports fail for no good reason yesterday. He told me today that he fixed it by copying the qry file to one with a different name and then pointing the report to the new file. This solved the problem but shouldn't have because nothing fundamentally had changed. We have also had occasions when files spontaneously become corrupt and have to be recreated. When I was working at Honeywell we started out with Crystal but quickly changed to writing the script ourselves that could be used to create PDF's. PDF's are just as professional looking as Crystal plus you can control every last detail, but for most people this would be too much tedious work. For me I would do anything to go back to the tedious work, but I have been doomed because we can only use Crystal where I work now. So use Crystal I guess. I think they are the 'leading' report generator. But what you need to do is find one person who has experience using it and make him do all the reports. Over time he will disregard any value over this own sanity and will accept his doomed future and limit his complaint to mild screams of agony. It would be unwise to make other developers to share his Crystal exposure because while you might think that you are easing one mans burden you are in fact infecting everyone else with the misery that is Crystal Reports. How would you be able to live with yourself? Chad Kemp State Street Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, I don't know. I did find one person who shares my perspective: >> How about an SQL backend with reporting by Crystal Reports... Mention CR again, and you die, *slowly*. Painfully too. I'll also hunt you down and shoot your dog. -- Bill Bradford -----Original Message----- From: Bill King [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 12:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Reporting tools First thing that comes to mind is Crystal Reports. CF has some integration with them as well. You may get some good response on the CF-TALK list for this. - BILL - -----Original Message----- From: Dimitri [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 9:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Reporting tools Does anybody know a good reporting app. which would allow to output up to 500 pages report, handle complicated database structure and parent - child relationships? Any suggestions will be appreciated. Sorry I am a little off topic. Dimitri ***************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************************** ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrFMa.bV0Kx9 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
