> > Pile money on floor, add gasoline, toss match on top <g>. >
> Oh! I saw that game played in 2000! > I saw it played in 1995, to the tune of $2.3m as of 1998. Here is how that game was played: Let's build an application using VFP3. Now, after it has been running successfully in 5 locations and our own 3 dealerships for one year, let's start drinking The Microsoft Kool-Aid and tell Gil how to develop software because we learned how to build Excel macros using the Macro recorder. Gee, Gil needs more programmers to help him because everyone else hires more programmers. And we have begun to subscribe to PC Magazine, therefore we car dealers are now expert programmers who happen to be car dealers. Now, let's get into the game like the big boys. We will take that perfectly good VFP app and start using VB and SQL Server instead because the new programmers, and magazine ads, tell us everyone else is doing that also. And for a lot of fun let's replace the End User VFP app without doing any real testing because we all know VB and SQL Server are perfect, otherwise Microsoft would never have released it. And when that fails miserably let's blame SQL Server and cut to Oracle because that is who we really ought to have used anyway because Larry Ellison has such a cool sailboat he races. And let's just put the Oracle database changes out in the field and see things turn around with the new Oracle database. Oh, more crashing except in one location. Gee that one location is one of our dealerships where a dealer's brother had refused to let us replace the VFP version, yet somehow it is strangely stable. Well, we must then stop supporting it! (by now Gil saw the writing on the wall, and had pulled up stakes and moved to Rochester, NY, providing VFP programming and support via VPN.) That ought to force them to move to the new VB/Oracle Super-Duper-Pooper Solution! Hey, they refuse to move to our new solution! Wait, we found the problem! Gil is still using VFP to do data translations in VFP instead of VB! That must be the reason we can't retrieve records from Oracle with VB! Never mind the fact Gil flew out to Wisconsin and proved the "missing Oracle records" could be pulled up using VFP with SPT. He must have cheated, and certainly consorts with the Devil! We need to start using Power Builder instead of VB, because it has a solid track record.... That is when I washed my hands of their misguided direction. Enough was enough. I released my own VFP7 based solution within about a year or so - which is still running across the US and Puerto Rico to this day. It took these folks at least 6 more years to come out again with what seemed a polished solution (after firing and replacing the idiots that pulled the project off track in 1997-1998), by which time they had lost all their customers other than their own 3 dealerships. Once they released their new app the market passed them by. Who knows how much money they lost, yet had they stayed on track things could have been so much different. It was not so much a VFP vs VB/SQL Server/Oracle thing as it was hopping from one solution to another on mere whims. Oh well, bad for them, good for me. BTW, that was not a fun game to watch. Even though it was not my money being torched, it was a good friend's money. Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Ted Roche > Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 7:56 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [NF] Microblogging smackdown - Twitter v. Indenti.ca > > > On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 11:47 PM, Rick Schummer > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Pile money on floor, add gasoline, toss match on top <g>. > > Oh! I saw that game played in 2000! > > -- > Ted Roche > Ted Roche & Associates, LLC > http://www.tedroche.com > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
