Hello,
I would not expect everyone to recreate the wheel, but I just have
this adversion to using packaged software.
Where I work the company telephone book is "in a database" and can
only be released by the physical gate keeper of the database. People
complain that their address or number is wrong and the gatekeeper is
too busy to fix it. This just sound odd as hell to me.
I threw up a quick database in mysql with the basic fields and I
wrote some update,modify and search features and stuck it on my
intranet. A user can log in and change anything in THEIR profile.
No need to ask someone else and hope they do it. This just seems
like the most common sensical approach. Yet I find few others who
think this way.
I recently attended a meeting about creating a marketing database. My
amazement was that something like this wasn't already in place. Yet
much of the focus seemed to stem around the use of ACT. Never during
the whole meeting was their any mention of the word net (neither
inter,intra, or extra).
My idea of a solution was to use a rdbms behind the scenes. All users
could connect from wherever, if they had permissions, via a browser.
I would design the database, queries etc. after sufficient interview
process.
There is an interesting story on perl.com about how a perl programmer
wrote a document management system with perl and the net.
Perhaps there are some people here who have experience with ACT.
Could it actually be used by many people as a "marketing database" to
track leads, do followup, update and delete entries etc.? I recall
that my first experience with computers was when I used MS Word (on a
Zenith laptop with 2 floppies and NO hard drive) to create a
"marketing database". I used to track who I sent to whom and how
they replied. I wonder if using ACT now would be similar to what I
did with MS Word back then.
I hope to stir up some discussion about current software development.
I like the idea of using perl (so many great modules and exisiting
programs) and the net with a rdbms. And how are software solutions
found? I reckon you would first determine what you want to do and
then find the best solution, as opposed to creating limits by
thinking first of how to mold the software to do what you want.
Peter
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