I hope I was clear in my post.
'I' didn't see your post as asking US to do YOUR homework.
What you are doing is needs analysis and by definition requires 'help'
or input from others. This is not doing YOUR work for you.
On the other hand needs analysis is much more complex than just asking
users what they want.
Most of the time they simply don't know.
Sometimes, and much lest often than some arrogant developers think, they
are wrong about what they really need.
Sometimes you need to stir the pot some to get people thinking.
Sometimes need to show them potential options to get them thinking.
Go back and look at the thread.
It was about to die out until Juan called you a cheat and I 'defended'
you by saying you just didn't know what you were doing.. ;-).
(Sorry Juan, I know you didn't say 'cheat', that's MY emphasis...)
Very often the process of getting user input is just like this.
Sometimes we spend more time trying to engage the users in a dialog and
playing politics that actual technical analysis.
It goes with the job, those skills are just as important in the real
world as the technical analysis.
Looking at existing or similar products is also more than just an exercise.
You need to USE them.
Figure out What Works, What Sucks and Why and learn from man-years of
other peoples work AND mistakes.
I'd suggest you look at OTHER database GUI interfaces as well.
I'd highly suggest you look as a tool called 'TOAD'. There are versions
for Oracle, SQL Server and I think one
of the open-source databases.
Steal ideas, concepts and copy 'what works' that is how the industry
works, and why not.
Is is 'Stealing' to start with work done by Newton or Pascal rather then
reinvent the wheel???
IF it were me, and IF there is a requirement (or suggestion) that you
build something that doesn't exist.
I'd finish your analysis of existing GUIs.
DOCUMENT, in your paper What you did and why.
Which of the following do you think would get high marks and which one
tags you as a slacker...
I was assigned a project to build a GUI for SQLite, but there was one,
so I did X instead.
or
Initial needs analysis shows 5 existing GUI interfaces for SQLite. They
are A, B, C, D, E. (With REAL details, authors, vendors, etc...)
These products range in price from free for products A, C & D to $129.95
for product B.
They run under the following operating systems...
They have the following common and distinct features...
They appear to have a following or market penetration of X....
Analysis shows the market/need/niche for a GUI for SQLite to be less
than initially expected.
Investigation and analysis related to the initial product direction DID
however turn up several needs/gaps/potential product niches
that warranted further investigation.
Further investigation showed a real need for a GUI reporting tool to
enable developers and end-users to quickly and accurately
develop enterprise class reports and logs from embedded applications. I
decided to provide a library and framework to allow
an integrated or stand-alone reporting tool for SQLite databases.
Even IF there is a 'rule' you need to write something unique and had to
switch because a similar tool exists, I would make no mention
of the fact. I WOULD talk about 'the product', needs, demand, market and
existing products instead. It shows you are looking at this from a
real-world
perspective rather than 'a class assignment'. Then again some profs.
think university IS the real-world... ;-).
I classify this a the difference between a student vs. a professional, a
coder vs. an application developer.
Just like in the real world, I'd keep your supervisor 'in the loop' if
you need to change direction, I'd also talk to him in terms as shown
above for the
reasoning behind the switch and get 'sign-off'.
I'd also let him know it took 'a lot of searching, but you found some
GUIs already exist', sounds better than 'there are like a hundred
already, what were
you thinking..." ;-).
I bet you have seen the peak on responses to your initial line of
questions.
You will need to figure out how to keep the group interested in YOUR pet
project to get a lot of further input.
There were several product and feature ideas in those messages, I'd look
at several of them seriously and incorporate them in further discourse.
Marc
