Active desktop developers?

[Ronald Anusiewicz]

Just curious. Who on this message board are still active developing new desktop applications.

[CALocklin]

I'm still maintaining a couple for customers but doing my best to retire completely. I also have a few of my own that I occasionally update.

[Ted Giles]

And me.
Also hybrids.
Mainly Council finance, SLA's and some personal stuff.
With the recent problems on the net, I can see a need for self contained applications running locally.

[Mike Wilson]

Hello Cal,
It has been a very long time since I have seen your name. Back in the days when Bill Jordan was still alive, may he RIP. I still have and use your utilities in my Dev toolbar. I am retired, so to speak, but have done a couple of small desktop apps in the last year and I am still maintaining and continue to develop URSA, the behemoth app that runs the manufacturing company that makes advertising conveyor belts - MessageWrap (messagewrap.com). Otherwise, I just keep tweaking my personal apps. Are you still flying, Cal?

[madtowng]

I use whatever seems to be needed.
Desktop is great for automating things (checking to see if something is running, processing files generated by apis).
Web/mobile seems best for interacting with the end user.

[pboomwork]

Been using Alpha products since the DOS days with Alpha4 when I needed something better than spreadsheets. Still using Alpha Anywhere desktop now and my co-workers are still using spreadsheets for everything, drives me crazy, and this is in an organization with hundreds of employees and lots of resources. Quotes that come to mind are “Excel is not a database” and “Every time data is shared in a spreadsheet a kitten dies”.

I see a common theme here, “retirement”, and yes, I am 4 months away from retirement. Maybe I am stuck in my ways and refuse to join the modern era of web everything and software as a service. But when I look at my current toolset of applications, Alpha is the only constant from 20 years ago. I simply have found nothing better for getting data task done in a minimal amount of time.

It’s easy to clean up the data mess (almost always provided in spreadsheets) cleaned up and placed in tables with some forms and browses and field rules to prevent further a mess. Once you have that done, you can add some menus to make it useable by others and scripts to interface it to other systems. The final bit is where Alpha Anywhere Desktop shines. It is a tool for the manipulation of data and a rich self contained programming environment. The combination of both is what I have failed to find elsewhere in any other product.

Sorry off topic here, what to I use the desktop for.

In the lead up to my retirement, I am using the desktop to automate the activities of two non profits that have full websites and mobile apps.

In my current employment, I use Alpha Desktop for a toolset used to maintain a medical application (GE MUSE). I don’t see that going away after my retirement it is used for tasks that would become too time consuming if not impossible. Others may think otherwise. They will find out.

How large is the APP? Here are some stats.

609 Scripts
358 functions
103 menus
28 toolbars
78 tables
13 sets

[Al Buchholz]

Me.

[Ted Giles]

Let's all go to Puerto Vallerta - Mexico - and retire in comfort.

[Bob Whitaker]

Still tinkering at the tender age of **. Not really commercial stuff mostly hobby apps and some stuff for a couple of clubs I am in. Great to see you up there Cal I have fond memories of our conversations at those great conferences way back. I remember you were very much into aviation. Take a look at a business my daughter and son in law started last year and is going pretty well - even got us a ”free” trip to NYC late last year in a gulfstream g4. The business is http://www.k9jets.com

[nugget3825]

Good morning Ron,

I have one customer for whom I developed an app many years ago and still support.

What's up ?

Lar

[Tom Patten]

I am still supporting my assisted living app

[Tim Sutherland]

Hi Ron,
We have three different apps we utilize; a web app, an SQL app and a desktop app. The desktop app is our most used and most crucial part of our business. It is still used by multiple users all day via shadowing and we still maintain and update it regularly. It is also used internally to reference and update our web app and SQL app.