Re: A call for review

Marc Santhoff wrote:

>Hi Andrew, Frank, and the silent readers,
>
>compatibility is a fine thing, but in the further development of base
>you should be aware of some important facts:
>
>Am Mittwoch, den 28.09.2005, 10:05 +0200 schrieb Frank Schönheit - Sun
>Microsystems Germany:
>  
>
>>Since one major strength of MSA is the capability to create
>>database-driven applications (which don't look like databases at all),
>>the target audience of Base should (should! see below) be the
>>developers
>>of such applications - this in fact is my serious and deepest belief.
>>    
>>
>
>You're right, creating database applications is not for the ordinary
>user, it wasn't before and still isn't after MSA appeared. Microsoft
>tries to compensate this issue by throwing in masses of "wizards" and
>samples to lower the barrier. This is worth a thought!
>
>  
>
>>OOo Base 2.0 does not allow for this audience, for a number of
>>reasons,
>>of which you mentioned a lot: the "forms are text documents"-problem,
>>the missing macro capabilities, the immense complexity of (important
>>parts of) the API, and so on.
>>
>>For quite a while now, the OOo team (the Sun part of it, honestly) is
>>discussing what we (!) think should be the goals for post-2.0, and I
>>constantly argue that we should make Base a platform for application
>>development, exactly for the "applications" targeted at the groups of
>>3 to 9 users you're mentioning.
>>    
>>
>
>There are many concurrent database creating applications, some are
>already dead, other aren't. Many of them are still in use because they
>do their task. If you ask people that know more than MSA they can tell
>you the pros and cons in comparison.
>
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>
Hopefully I did not give the impression that I am advocating a MSA 
clone. I am not! It is a parody of functionality that I am interested 
in, not look and feel. Even this parody is, in my mind, is the start not 
the finish. For example there exists a further market, one that MS has 
struggled with, but that they actually offer a compelling case for. This 
is that they can scale from 1 user to hundreds of users and not have to 
leave the family of products. It is not just MSA by SQLServer also. In 
there case it is C/S or ASP under IIS fot the larger implementations.

In the case of OO.o my mind quickly jumps to the possiblity of a tight 
integration with HSQLDB server, Apache Tomcat and OO.o XForms on the 
client. If there where a clear path to this then OO.o would be 
positioned to make the same arguments. OOoBase native file format for 1 
user (Maybe expanding this in later releases to handle very small work 
groups), OOoBase HSQL file based for small user groups, OOoBase HSQL 
Server C/S for medium sized organizations and HSQL Server, Tomcat (JBoss 
perhaps, oh yeah and I think SUN actually has an App server also 
*smile*) OOo XForms for distributed systems.

>I think base should do better in general, take the best of *all* worlds
>not only one, please. Copying only the look and feel of MSA leads to
>making the same mistakes.
>
>In my opinion a database app should be easy to use and understand,
>however this goal is reached. Running after Microsoft is a race that
>never can be won.
>
>Regards,
>Marc
>
>
>
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