On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 11:44 AM, o1bigtenor <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote: > snip > >> >> I'm not trying to be nasty... just realistic. >> The whole point of creating a language is so that we don't have to have a >> UI. >> My advice to the original user would be: go install some other software. >> Try GnuCash, get QuickBooks, etc. >> > > I'll start with the last stuff first. > > I have tried to install GnuCash and the dependencies are legion and result > in me not having a viable installation. > Tried Quickbooks and found that to get the level of detail that I wanted I > would need to spend quite a bit of cash (IIRC I would need the 3rd or maybe > even the fourth level of software and as all of the levels are in the > software but only unlocked with greater fees I wasn't too terribly > interested besides then I would be hostage to them forever for my > information.). >
Just curious, how much? I looked into it recently while doing research for my motivation document, and it seemed like 300$/year. If you're not interested in development and instead want to just be a pure user of this, this is well spent money it IMO (although you're right that you're probably locking away your data in a silo... I wonder if QuickBooks has an open format export feature? I bet if probably does export to QBO files). I have tried a number of other OSS programs and the skills that I would > take to install them were far beyond me and when I got the assistance of a > friend (engineer type with 30 years of Unix/Linux experience) and STILL > couldn't get things installed (with 50+ hours of time) I wasn't too > terribly impressed. Software should be installable without needing 30 years > of hacker experience to do so. > > Then I found ledger CLI - - - seemed somewhat straightforward - - - - but > until Eric stated ". . . creating and editing a plain text file . . ." > there was absolutely ZERO indication on how to start. Now if you know what > you're doing man pages (as well as the vast majority of computer software > documentation) are useful - - - if you don't (on the other hand) they don't > serve ANY USEFUL PURPOSE!! > > Something as basic as telling the user that you start with a text file and > then edit it is very very simple - - - - its not in ANY of the > documentation (I read each piece multiple times looking for a solution). > This kind of documentation reinforces my thinking that programmers should > NEVER EVER be allowed to write documentation - - - they don't know how to. > For that you need people who know nothing about your software and how to > use it. Now when you have explained what to do to such a person they will > have a way of writing the documentation - - - which ANYONE will understand. > You're right, computer programmers do suck at writing prose. I don't think we should not be allowed to write documentation however, on the contrary, we should all start CARING MORE. Funny how timely you should be writing this now, I've been starting a "Getting Started" guide recently as part of my unfinished cookbook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P5At-z1sP8rgwYLHso5sEy3u4rMnIUDDgob9Y_BYuWE/ I'm working actively on this, hoping to get it finished within a few weeks. Not sure it will help you much though, it's for Beancount syntax, not Ledger's. The ideas are very similar, but there are some subtle differences in semantics. The hurdles you'll face with something like Ledger (or Beancount) are two-fold: first you'll face the hurdle of how to use the tools, which is what you're struggling with so far, and second, you'll face the hurdle of how to solve accounting problems with it, once you know the language. But in my opinion the command-line accounting community is still very much at an early and somewhat experimental stage when it comes to that and we aren't yet providing sufficient examples of how to solve problems. This is why I'm writing the cookbook: I want to share the methods I've come up with to solve all my accounting needs (and I pretty much have) and stimulate some discussion with others about how best to solve specific challenges. These days I'm writing documentation for that reason, isolating and discussing the various situations and solutions around many accounting problems. Ledger doesn't yet even book capital gains automatically (there is a pending patch that partially fixes that), and Beancount suffers from other shortcomings (inflexible filtering, inconsistent list of reports between web interface & console, and of course... no documentation... but I'm aiming to remedy all of that this summer, especially the documentation bit). Are you ready to participate in a construction project, or do you just want to get down to business without any bumps in the road at all? If the former: Welcome to the community! If the latter: my advice is save your time and go buy QuickBooks. But then I am assuming that you (the group) actually cares about those that > would try to use the program. Comments like the last line above very much > put the lie to that idea. > Ok, so I can either lie and mislead you into thinking you can use our tools without editing text files and waste a whole bunch of your time until you realize for yourself that it won't work. Do you prefer that? Give it a shot... welcome to the Ledger user community! [*large embrace with arms wide open*] Realistically, you probably need to be able to edit text files and be able to learn a very, very simple computer "language" if you're going to use this successfully. This is not me trying to put you off, I'm just saving you some pain, I'm stating a basic requirement of these command-line accounting tools. I'm just... saying it like it is... we do it this way in order to _avoid_ user interfaces, because we think "language" is more powerful than menus and buttons and checkboxes. You made it sound like you did not expect to be editing text files. -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
