On Tue, 01 Jun 1999, you wrote:
> The screenshots resemble the older xacc from which gnucash descended.
> Given the mail I get, it seems like xacc is plenty enough for a lot of
> people; I suppose that there must be some sort of lesson in the
> creeping-featuritis that gnucash has (and that is I suppose my fault).
>
> One lesson I would draw from this is to maybe have beginner/intermediate/advanced
> modes for gnucash, and/or have these as separate executables.
Umm. I think one executable is always better, with beginner and expert modes.
Multiple executables risks creating multiple development streams, delays
porting etc.
> The current set
> of menu entries, & the dialogue layouts are kind of "intermediate" in
> nature, and may be a bit daunting for the beginer.
>
> The other lesson is that gnucash has been & continues to be too hard to build,
> too hard to install for most folks. This is in great contrast to xacc (and
> probably gnofin), which was a simple, self-contained system which "just works".
I have to agree. Watching the conversation in the list for a couple of months
has left me wondering if I'll ever get the time to tackle such a complex
install, because it looks like I would have to install about 8 layers just to
get near to installing GnuCash itself. So far I've stuck with Xacc because it
does what I want and I just don't have lots of spare time for complex installs.
I think you need to settle on just one development environment that is widely
used, and find ways to avoid dependency on other packages unless they can be
distributed with GnuCash such that the result is a self-contained portable
package - but this is unlikely.
I also think that it is worth sticking with because it is based on a
fundamentally sound architecture, which was why I found it easy to write simple
reports for Xacc.
Of course, I talking a lot of theory here, and very little knowledge of GnuCash
code.... :-)
> Finally I wonder if gnucash is too hard to develop for & debug, because its
> grown big enough to have some significant internal complexity. I don't know what
> can be done about this, if anything should be done, I suspect this is a fact of
>life...
Perhaps deep depression is making you look in the wrong direction. Programs
rarely get too complex as long as the basic system has clear aims.
Graham
--
Graham Chapman
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web : http://www.zeta.org.au/~grahamc/
----- %< -------------------------------------------- >% ------
The GnuCash / X-Accountant Mailing List
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
put "unsubscribe gnucash-devel [EMAIL PROTECTED]" in the body
