On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 6:44 PM, Garrett Fitzgerald <sarekofvul...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Hey, folx. I've been thinking about how to get the Bangor Band's music > library out of Excel and into something a bit more functional. I can, of > course, think of how to do it relationally -- what I'm wondering is, would > anyone care to suggest another platform to do it on? And why? :-) > > Hey, Garrett! Long time no chat. Since this is the FoxForum, and I actually still make a fraction of my living from it, We ought to say "FoxPro!" So, that's out of the way. So, you want to go relational? Composer, arranger, musical title, which instrument and part, etc. There's surely a relational structure you can overlay on your data. The first rule of good programming is "be lazy." Hasn't someone already done this? (Surely they have). This seems to be an especially hard thing to Google. "Band music library software" is just as likely to get you a local string band playing at the library, or the library's list of music for loan. Lots of variations were unsuccessful. Found that "orchestral library software" seemed to yield some good results, although sample libraries are in that result, too. [BTW, folks: in case you think this is just an inventory job, check out this job listing: http://www.adaptistration.com/jobs/listing/orchestral-librarian/ or this post: http://www.polyphonic.org/article/the-role-of-the-orchestra-librarian-as-music-copyist/ ] So, a good question before we answer yours is to ask "What do you want it to do?" If there are surprising features, like "transposing into a new key" and output to MIDI, that's likely to change the recommendations. Do you want barcode labels to speed inventory control? ( http://www.musiclibrarian.net/ does this. Check out their site, great demos!) The next question is "how can you hand this off to someone else?" I presume this is a partially-volunteer operation, so finding a solution you can pass along is probably a key feature. If you write it in FoxPro, you're likely supporting it forever. If you write it in Access, you can probably easily foist it off on most anyone. Or Excel. If you make it a hosted multi-tier solution that requires Apache directives, it would require a web-savvy manager. Obviously, if you buy/rent/lease software from a commercial source, that's not your problem. I think that the Internet is taking over the world, and that everyone will have a desktop, tablet and/or smartphone with Internet access. Even musicians. In Bangor. This offers portability, remote access, device and OS compatibility. Accessing the db from the orchestra pit, band room and at home would be a win. The downside, of course, is that it needs someone familiar with hosting, admin, security, etc. (This can be a nice "in kind" donation from a local development shop.) Since it's likely a fairly small amount of data (vs. Big Data, anyway) and a handful of simultaneous users, any of the major RDBMS (Postgres, MariaDB/MySQL, etc.) should be able to handle your needs. So, if this turns into a web app, the answer is that any of the popular platforms (PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl) should be able to support the app functionality; it's more a question of locating the talent and securing support. Finally, I've never seen an app that took less time than I thought it would. My first task as a consultant is to convince clients that the last thing they want to do is build custom software. It is the most expensive, highest risk solution to a problem. If the problem is the right one, the return on investment makes custom development the right answer. If not, off-the-shelf software, integrating/customizing available software, or modifying their procedures to fit pre-packaged software is often the right path. Good luck! - Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/cacw6n4t--j6seczx+qfyvohcysqa5kbnqnwzo0_-xjko_jp...@mail.gmail.com ** 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.
