> From: Wjhonson > As to the point of "competing" only, I would suggest that most if not all > the people who read this list, also read others, and have various skills, > not just U2 skills. Are you suggesting that a U2 person would not also > have skills in say... D3 ?
Yeah, I am suggesting that. But "skills" does not equate to "expertise". I "have skills" with SQL Server and MySQL but I'm no guru with either. Let's separate developers into two broad groups. There are those who only know Pick through their U2 experience. These are developers in end-user shops who have no need to know anything about other MV platforms. In fact this one group is not one group at all but two groups, the Universe people who don't care an iota about Unidata, and the Unidata people who feel the same about Universe. This is only a "U2" group for political purposes, and because the platforms have common features now simply because they have had common ownership for so long. We can talk about BASIC, verbs, and correlatives in common terms, but some people here (long-time Pick professionals) have commented on the stark differences between these platforms that have made migrations difficult. It's not just the differences, it's that it's so hard to know what all of the differences and similarities are, despite the platforms commonly being lumped under a single U2 banner. Then there are those like you and me who work across two or more MV platforms. YMMV, but as much as I've tried to become more competent with U2 over the last decade, I find the "impedance mismatch" between the platforms pushes me back "home" to D3 every time I focus energy on U2. I have apps that run on both Universe and Unidata and I competently support these apps for my many U2 clients. I also provide specialty development services and have no problem integrating with U2. But I wouldn't dare to be so arrogant as to call myself a U2 expert in this respected audience, despite my 30 years of experience with just about every Pick platform available. My experience with D3, QM, jBase, Ultimate, ADDS, GA, and a dozen other platforms still doesn't make me a U2 expert. And there are enough U2 experts here who haven't ported their wares to D3 to prove that the comfort doesn't translate in the other direction either. Coming back to the topic, the U2-only people would not be qualified to provide DBMS support for any other platform without a good amount of re-training. They'd do better than a SQL-only person but they're also disadvantaged with a number of preconceived notions of how the system works, details which don't apply to other platforms. And I believe most cross-MV people would also not be qualified to provide DBMS-level support for any DBMS unless they already focused on it. Knowing UniBASIC as a U2 developer doesn't make someone qualified to debug BASIC compiler or runtime errors for an end-user calling for help on D3. I work with people all the time who use platforms other than D3 and they freely admit they are as distant from D3 as I am from their platforms of choice. I have D3 clients who have contracted U2 people who profess to be Pick experts (avoiding the assertion of being competent with D3) only to find the situation didn't work. So while TigerLogic is open to considering someone with experience with another MV platform, I wouldn't want one of them answering the phone when I call TL any time soon, any more than you'd want me answering the Support phone at Rocket Software. That doesn't apply to everyone of course - I'm sure there are people out there who can transition well between platforms given a fair amount of time. I think that's the kind of person they're hoping to attract. As a final note, and perhaps with some irony... any of these MV companies would do well to hire people with experience with competing products. I think a huge tactical error that TL has made over the years is that they do not have enough people there who understand the other MV platforms enough to provide competitive data to prospects, or existing clients who are considering migration. That's one of the reasons why they've lost business to competitors. D3 has many features available elsewhere, TL "as an entity" just doesn't know they do, or how to articulate that. So someone from, say, Rocket comes along and says to a D3 site "lookie what We have" and a site will leave, not knowing they already have that feature. Someone who knows both platforms could help save that loss. Well, that's TL's loss and everyone else's gain. Sun Tzu said: Know yourself, know the enemy, know the terrain. T _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
