Hi Marc, yes you were clear in your post, I know that you came to my defence and if it wasn't for yours and Juan's comments this thread would most certainly have died a death by now but I am continually receiving excellent comments from people.
I would like to thank you personally aswell Marc, your comments have been invaluable to the direction in which my project has taken over the past few days. I am currently looking at GUIs to other SQL databases apart from SQLite, namely MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS Access(this is my non-open-source, non-cross-platform database that I will evaluate). Thank you for suggesting Toad, it is a GUI to MySQL which is one I am investigation so will come in handy. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all again and any other suggestions/comments would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks. John. -----Original Message----- From: m christensen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 13 December 2005 18:02 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [sqlite] Final Year Project/Dissertation help required!!!! 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 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by the NorMAN MailScanner Service and is believed to be clean. The NorMAN MailScanner Service is operated by Information Systems and Services, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. ==== This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private and confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, please take no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone. 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