>>PHP is pretty cool and very powerful, but it's not as friendly (IMO) as ASP. ASP may as well be a second skin for me, I can code one-handed, blind, while listening to opera. What other way is there to listen to opera? ;)
Yeah, I prefer ASP...but one client was on Unix...so I didn't see a choice...I had to learn PHP or they had to change to IIS...and I didn't see THAT happening in their case. But the VP was an idiot who got canned and now they're going through a reorg...so all work there is on hold. I was on the verge of looking for a good PHP group. Whew! ;-) BTW...as for music, my coding CD these days is Nickelback...Long Road. I think I'm on reply 2456 so far for this project. >Why would you use Word as a front-end? Well, a really good answer is $$$! I quoted this form at $1,960. I started it Monday and sending it to beta in about 6 hrs. ;-) And I start my next one tomorrow...quoted at $3,945...should take me 5 days. (I had to eat some time on this current form cos' that listbox array crap got me tangled up for a day and a half!) There's a big market for Word form automation and it's gonna get bigger if *I* have anything to say about it!<eg> And few people know how to code this stuff (or want to<g>) so it's a good market for me. I have clients literally lined up for document and/or DB connectivity automation apps in Word. And I've been doing this stuff for 12 yrs! That's how I got into dev work in 94...writing Word reports from VB apps cos' clients could easily customize it. Although it's only in the last couple years that I started using ADO for these, too...out of demand! Think about how many folks out there want to create forms to send to clients, affiliates, blah, blah, to have them fill it out and email it back. Or forms within companies! Attendance forms, purchase orders, you name it. Then they get the info back and WISH they could do more with that data...but it's a lot of work. So some of them think about how cool it would be to click a button and have all that form data entered into a DB...enter Dian!<g> And because I've been doing this for some time, I have lots of mods so I can do it faster/cheaper than they could do it in-house on their own paying some VB flunky who doesn’t know Word!<smirk> >saved a whole $200 by not buying a license for VB and lost tens of thousands by licensing the entire Office Suite for some 3,800 computers for this ONE application. Sick [EMAIL PROTECTED]@%D#. Yeahbutt, if you already HAVE office...it's a no-brainer! And a bazillion offices already do. Word's easy...so it's no problem to get people to open a doc, tab through fields and enter info rather than building yet one more EXE they have to find on their 60 gig system. Sure...tossing this all on an Intranet with ASP would be the much better answers from a dev/efficiency view...but there are GOBS of small companies out there who don't know the first thing about intranets or what an IIS is even though they have it sitting right there on their Win2k server! I know...I just finished with a client just like that. And THEY were computer consultants, but everything they did was in an Excel spreadsheet! They had NO automation at all and TONS of paperwork. I started by showing them simple form letter automation and by the time I left 10 months later...I'd built them a fully integrated intranet and web with client extranets and a nice group of doc/DB automated forms. Another prime solution I did was an automated Word form that a company of 800 would use to fill out office supplies and software orders. I automated the form so all that info would go into a DB instantly. This gave them instant software asset management cos' anytime new software was ordered that order was recorded in their DB with all the licensing, user, PC details. They were thrilled. Nobody thought about a simple Word form and an Access DB as the solution to their order/asset mgmt tracking problem. ;-) And I just finished a project for a disabled doctor who dictated his patient forms with Dragon. He wanted to have the patient data go into a DB to make the dictation easier...so I added form fields and setup ADO connectivity. Now he can SAY the patient's name and 90% of the form is filled out from the DB with all the patient's records. And he HAS to use Word cos' that's what the hospital required when he submits his docs! So I just recreated the hospital forms for him with the automation. Ya gotta use your imagination, Shawn.<g> I have some of my solutions on my site here: (gotta make time to add a lot more!): http://www.mousetrax.com/Consulting_Solutions.html >(those dang domain squatters) Tell me about it! And there's some search engine out there called MouseTrax, too! They own .net and .org...but I got .com in '95 and have it paid up for another 5 yrs with a dozen warnings for me when the next 5 yr payment comes close. ;-) But that's okay, www.mousetrax.com/techtrax is getting pretty well known. Well...thanks for the break...time to get back to this report layout. Just hope I can stop writing ASP code instead of VBA in my mods!<g> Dian ~ -----Original Message----- From: Shawn K. Hall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 2:31 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ASP] OT tangents Hi Dian, > Cool...thanks. Yeah, I started learning PHP and > was going to learn mySQL, but then the tides > changes a bit on that project. PHP is pretty cool and very powerful, but it's not as friendly (IMO) as ASP. ASP may as well be a second skin for me, I can code one-handed, blind, while listening to opera. What other way is there to listen to opera? ;) > Lots of automated Word/DB connectivity forms lately. Out of curiosity (you're going to hate how curious I can get), why? Why would you use Word as a front-end? Don't get me wrong - it's got a LOT of potential and programmatically it has many features of any dedicated language. But it's like using an automatic drill to build a pyramid. And it requires everyone to have Word Version X in order to make use of all the features. I've been down the route of using word for major automation (actually, I automated an entire 8-floor Call Center for Kaiser using Word and Excel) - but the whole time I was screaming "of course it CAN be done - but it SHOULDN'T be!" They saved a whole $200 by not buying a license for VB and lost tens of thousands by licensing the entire Office Suite for some 3,800 computers for this ONE application. Sick [EMAIL PROTECTED]@%D#. > AND I totally forgot about my favorite book that I > had from before when I was going a lot of ASP and > just learning all this stuff... > Active Server Page in Plain English > ISBN: 0-7645-47453-3), this is a fantastic ASP, SQL > HTML, ADO reference book. The only ASP book I feel comfortable recommending is "Mastering Active Server Pages 3" by A. Russell Jones http://ReliableAnswers.com/scripts/amazon.asp?0782126197 I've read several ASP books but this one was the only one that I really enjoyed. In fact, I have my wife reading it right now. Actually, I told her to read the first two chapters. If she still "doesn't get" ASP and procedural code in general by then, then I told her she could just do content on the sites I manage and I'll maintain all the code. It'd be nice to have another hand in the code library that I trusted, though. > And YES!!! Please do join us and write some stuff for > TechTrax (by MouseTrax). That's right, TechTrax. I associate everything by domain, my apologies. (those dang domain squatters) > ...one of our articles (Beth Melton's Office Shortcut Bar > article) was mentioned on TechTV! Too cool! ;-) Awesome! > Plus I know a lot of softies read it...so it'll help that > push for MVP status that Ray and I are raggin' them for > you!<smirk/wink> Thanks. :) > Adrian writes for us when he can and his "everything you > wanted to know about Response.Redirect" is one of the top > hits. Here's a link for interested people: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=214 > I'd ask Ray to write, too...but you know what a lazy ass > he is!<g, d&r, v, v, f> I'm just impressed that he's still using 'Ray at work' instead of the many permutations of what he COULD be using in his sig right now. Regards, Shawn K. Hall http://ReliableAnswers.com/ '// ======================================================== "They can because they think they can." -- Virgil --------------------------------------------------------------------- Home : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/active-server-pages --------------------------------------------------------------------- Post : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.8 - Release Date: 12/8/2004 -- This email scanned and certified clean by AVG! Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.8 - Release Date: 12/8/2004 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/17folB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Home : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/active-server-pages --------------------------------------------------------------------- Post : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/active-server-pages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
