Hi Rod,
On 05/06/2005, at 5:04 AM, WAMUG Mailing List wrote:
And rather than keeping all our eggs in one basket (and only having
one person in the business that can competently use MYOB), we decided
to look at a separate system for repair logging, and other small
tasks. At least we can customise the new program the way we want it!
And my experience with Multi-user MYOB is that for more than 1 user,
forget any sort of performance. It really bogs down the whole
network. At least two clients have reported the same sorts of
network speed issues when they went to multi-user and MYOB.
I use Omnis Studio all the time. The upside is the speed of
development, cross-platform independance (Macs/Windows/Linux) and the
like. The downside is the cost, a basic developer license is about
$350, and runtimes aren't much different in price. However, that's
still a lot cheaper than 4D or others. I've built and deployed apps
on all three platforms, with multi-user systems, and even web
interfaces to some systems.
I taught myself PHP, and created a fairly complex job time-keeping
app, but you'd have to know what you're doing. I made lots of
mistakes developing, and debugging was a pain. It has half-dozen
tables, and the web interface is very basic, but I track all the
hours for my business using it. It generates reports with filters
and meets our basic needs. The plus is that PHP and MySQL are
installed on every OSX box, and tools like PhpMyAdmin make the SQL
side easier to handle.
I've also purchased RealBasic, and I'm looking into using it for
small apps using it's RealDB engine, but so far it seems harder to
write database apps in RealBasic than it does in Studio. I think
there's a lot more extra stuff you have to do in RealBasic to make it
work - but maybe it's just my familiarity with the other
environment... That being said, I've started writing Pacman in
RealBasic, and my sons have been doing the artwork (if anyone's
interested, email me:). I have a basic working game, just got to
iron out the quirks.
Out of the three environments, I think Studio's the best for database
apps, especially cross-platform. The runtime "tax" is really the
only downside. PHP is a possibility (and free!), but only if you
know SQL, and some HTML. RealBasic has promise, but nothing solid yet.
HTH,
Paul.
--
Paul W. Mulroney
Logical Developments
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 86 Coolgardie Street
www.logicaldevelopments.com.au BENTLEY WA 6102
Ph: +61 8 9458 3889 Fax:
+61 8 9458 2169
