I've been watching with interest the messages flying by from various people that confirm the impression (from just trying to build it) that Gnucash has become a gigantic hairball. John Ralls has been saying a number of things that sound smart (I'll tell you later where to send the check, John) about design errors, problems in the data model, etc., and has embarked upon a re-design. Christian has taken a similar step back with Cutecash. Then there's the whole issue of the use of Scheme. Much as I love the elegance of the language, I doubt that its use is appropriate here, for all the reasons that we've discussed ad nauseum.
So I'd like to suggest that perhaps none of the proposed ways-forward are radical enough. I have little to no knowledge of Gnucash internals. The only thing I know about the quality of the design and the code is what I read from the people who are currently doing the real work. But I do have many, many years of experience working and managing projects of similar and greater complexity, and there are times when you just have to cut your losses. Gnucash has been around for a long time, and its life-span covers the development of a lot of tools. If you were going to start with a blank sheet of paper today, I doubt very much whether you would do a lot of the system as it is today. The big question is, when is it worth it to cut your losses and start over? I don't know that Gnucash is at that point, but I'm suggesting that you give this question very careful consideration, before doing something incremental. Keep in mind that if you did start over, the current system wouldn't be a total loss. I'm sure there is a lot of value in things like accounting rules that it enforces, and other knowledge embedded in the code. Some of it might be salvageable by lifting parts of the code itself, or at least doing translations. Other cases might involve just transferring knowledge of how to do things and how not to do things. But I say don't throw good money *possibly* (not definitely) after bad without at least considering whether it's time for Gnucash II. /Don _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
