I have been following this thread (and some other threads resulting from fairly obvious newcomers to UV/UD) with interest. Being pretty much a newbie to UV myself I'd like to throw in a few comments:
Many, if not most, of the regular posters in this list seem to have MANY years of experience in this environment, and are still coding according to habits acquired way back in time. I do not mean this disrespectfully - for those that are happy with using line editors and all upper case, that is the way you work. >From a newbie's point of view though - anybody learning UV/UD now most likely will come from a C or Visual Basic background, where (especially in the case of C) almost all coding is done in lower case. Personally I use Delphi a lot, which is also done mostly in lower case. I find it inconvenient to switch to the "convention" of doing coding in all uppercase, especially as I have made a habit of keeping a separate word processor window open to document programs and changes while I am doing the coding. In between, I also have to provide end-user support to 100+ users in MS Office, Lotus Notes etc., and being of a lazy (and efficient) nature, this is done using VNC. Then I also have my email open all the time, and is constantly checking and replying to messages. With all the above (and more!) happening, I find it annoying having to switch caps-lock all the time - what happens a lot is that I switch to another window and start typing away merrily, only to realise after a couple of words that everything is cASE iNVERTED, or that the help I'm trying to give to a user is not working because of case inversion. As to editing, having become accustomed over the years to the convenience of full-screen editors, and not initially knowing that it was possible to use a full-screen editor to edit BPs, it was a nightmare for me to get the simplest things done in UV. I think there are many other newbies out there that feels the same... Add together to this the naming of things ( a UV ACCOUNT is not a login account, but is similar to a MS SQL database etc.), and it was extremely challenging for me to get to grips with UV - the namings make self-help research difficult. Initially I actually hated UV for this, but I was forced to use it because our core financial system runs on it. After having come to grips with how UV works and interacts, I have come to like and very much respect it for what it can do, but I see many of my initial frustrations echoed in posts from other newcomers. This can possibly steer newcomers to the MV environment away from it - it takes a lot of time and effort to "make the switch". As Mr. Glorfield stated in his farewell message, this is most definitely a very helpful and courteous group, but on the odd occasion I have also seen replies posted to obvious newcomers that is given based on years of experience, but without regard to the fact that the newcomer does not actually have the necessary foundation to understand it. The U2UG web site proudly advertises the growing Knowledge Base, but how does one get to it? - for a newcomer, there is no direct link to click (unless I am not looking properly) - surely this will be one of the first ports of call for anybody looking for information. I am prepared to dedicate some personal time to do write-ups (how-tos etc) for newcomers, from the perspective of a newcomer, which can then be vetted by more experienced UV users for correctness - this will be a bit intermittent as I have a lot on my plate though. Is anyone prepared to vet and host such write-ups? For the newcomers out there who read this far - stick to it like a foxterrier to a tennis ball - it will pay of in the end and you will be surprised at the new world that opens up. For the UV longtimers - thanks for all the help and feedback to the group - it is much appreciated! Regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber & Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd Windhoek Namibia Tel +264 (0)61 293 2106 Cell +264 (0)81 124 8625 Fax +264 (0)61 293 2104 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
