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Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

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    #16
    Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

    Mike,
    Anything I write will probably appear to come from the Department of Redundancy Department.
    I have been using Alpha since 1993, and make my living exclusively from the product.
    You will not be disappointed in its ease-of-use, Rapid Application Development capability, excellent ability to work with SQL tables, and the wonderful support of not only this board, but the staff of Alpha.
    Keep watching for a new video series for users moving from Access to Alpha. It should be available soon.
    Jay Talbott
    Jay Talbott
    Lexington, KY

    Comment


      #17
      Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

      I am a contract programmer, and have used many tools over the last 14 years to develop systems, both desktop and web. Although I still use some of those tools today, I use Alpha 5 more than the others.

      I have found that I can develop apps in it quicker than any of the other languages that I use. I primarily develop web apps with Alpha, and I haven't found anything that I can't accomplish. I have had to change my approach or mindset on a few items from what I would do in other languages, but the more I use Alpha the more I like it. I have developed more than a dozen complete systems with it, and made changes/enhancements to others over the last 1.5 years, and look forward to the next release and the ability to create mobile apps.
      Last edited by leehaddox; 01-24-2013, 01:15 PM.

      Comment


        #18
        Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

        From Richard:
        There are MANY other examples -one of the challenges is that many of our customers don't want to go public on their Alpha Five apps because they have told us that they see Alpha Five as a weapon that gives them a competitive advantage and they don't want to tip off their competition.
        Richard is correct about this. I do not want alpha software to show in my apps for fear that my competition will pick it up and start doing as well as I do in getting apps out the door quicker and better. Most of my competitors are on vb and an access mdb file for their apps. When they go to a Dealer's site, they are very interested in what that dealer uses for a tool and the dealers tend to be proud and they show it to them. Dealers also tend to brag about how quickly they get what they need after they sign on a new bank or they need a certain new report at how fast they get it in-house to use. I can make an app, debug, add features, make specific reports in a fraction of the time my competition can. There is no degredation of speed for alpha and in most cases alpha performs much faster. I use dbf and on the desktop. As I posted in another thread, alpha can(with my udf's) compute a payment on a car loan much quicker than any of my know competition. That is very heavy math. Rolling a payment, apr, down payment, trade value, etc are as much as 10 times faster using alpha.
        Dave Mason
        [email protected]
        Skype is dave.mason46

        Comment


          #19
          Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

          Originally posted by mike_bmo View Post
          In general does it sound like a good solution for what we do? Especially in terms of importing/exporting small temporary daily files. Does anyone use the web projects for these types of operations? Do users recommend using another application web page design like Dreamweaver?

          Also, what do most long time users like about Alpha 5 (what does it do well or best)? And if starting over would they choose it.
          Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.
          I believe Alpha would be an good fit for what you are describing. Other tools would also work but Alpha will end up getting you to where you need to be quicker and with a more maintainable solution in the end. The thing Alpha does best is providing the infrastructure for building solid web-apps efficiently. You don't need to provide a myriad of details as with other development tools, yet it has the flexibility to allow you to customize things when you need to.

          Comment


            #20
            Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

            Hi Mike,

            I also moved to Alpha Five from Visual FoxPro and .Net. You want to see my article about my Journey until I found Alpha Five at: http://alphasoftware.net/from-visual...-five-via-net/

            My firm also provides Database services as Remote DBA for MS SQL and performing the Import using SSIS is the right thing to do. Then you dump all the data into a grid. I suggest all data cleanup should be done in the database level.

            A grid includes a search engine and detail form and actual grid and all in one component. In addition you can basically impellent all of that without writing any code. Get use to idea that working with Alpha requires by far much less code then Visual FoxPro, .Net. or MS Access.

            Alpha Five and MS SQL is a great combination for productivity. My first application was a Student Loan application and using Alpha Five really shorten the duration of the entire development. I started with Alpha a year and 3 months ago.

            I liked also the Report Engine that Alpha Five has, and and it is very powerful and very flexible.

            Regards,

            Doron
            The Farber Consulting Group, Inc.

            Web site: http://www.dFarber.com
            Blog: http://www.dfarber.com/computer-consulting-blog.aspx
            Alpha Five Software Developer
            Convert Ms Access to Web
            Last edited by DoronF; 02-01-2013, 01:27 AM.

            Comment


              #21
              Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

              Hi Mike, I've been using Alpha Five against MSSQL for about 3 years and have only ever used it for Web and Mobile Development. In regard to your specific requirement, we also use SSIS to import data from wholesalers/distributors of our products, and merge it together with direct sales. Just one of our uses for Alpha Five is to provide dashboarding and analysis/reporting tools to make that data (millions of rows) available to our deskbound and mobile staff. All of our datasets can be output to CSV or Excel using Alpha Five. The neat thing about Alpha Five is whatever web based solutions you build for the desktop should also work fine in the web browser on mobile devices.

              We've also been doing quite a bit of work with the current beta release of Alpha Five (or Alpha Anywhere), and that really adds some nice additional tools both for traditional web apps and mobile devices. The Panel model they have developed lends itself very nicely to Web Apps too, and the new List control can render thousands of rows of data within seconds, which is also of great benefit to our web based applications. At the moment we have a portion of our mobile workforce running live using iPad's on the beta version of Alpha Five, and I can say without hesitation that it is a very significant improvement in terms of both native look and feel and performance on that device.

              I have many toolsets available and for Web or Mobile based solutions I still choose Alpha Five. As others have suggested, Alpha Five is extremely flexible, has a very extensive development language, and you can keep using your SQL Views, Stored Procs and SSIS packages where it makes sense.

              Hope this helps.

              Comment


                #22
                Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                Hi Mike,

                I also moved to Alpha Five from Visual FoxPro and .Net. You want to see my article about my Journey until I found Alpha Five at: http://alphasoftware.net/from-visual...-five-via-net/

                My firm also provides Database services as Remote DBA for MS SQL and performing the Import using SSIS is the right thing to do. Then you dump all the data into a grid. I suggest all data cleanup should be done in the database level.

                A grid includes a search engine and detail form actual grid and all in one component. In addition you can basically implement all of that without writing any code. Get use to idea that working with Alpha requires by far much less code then Visual FoxPro or .Net. or MS Access.

                Alpha Five and MS SQL is a great combination for productivity. My first application was a Student Loan application and using Alpha Five really shorten the duration for the entire development. I started with Alpha a year and 3 months ago.

                I liked also the Report Engine that Alpha Five has, and it is very powerful and very flexible.

                Regards,

                Doron
                The Farber Consulting Group, Inc.

                Doron

                Web site: http://www.dFarber.com
                Blog: http://www.dfarber.com/computer-consulting-blog.aspx
                Alpha Five Developer
                Convert MS Access to Web
                Last edited by DoronF; 02-01-2013, 01:26 AM.

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                  Originally posted by mike_bmo View Post

                  My questions are geared towards long time users of Alpha 5. In general does it sound like a good solution for what we do? Especially in terms of importing/exporting small temporary daily files. Does anyone use the web projects for these types of operations?
                  There are some amazing back end tools built into the Alpha Five application server. I am using them on a couple of projects. It allows you to automate back end update processes using files. Once it is set up, it works beautifully.

                  Because Alpha came from a desktop development world, there are an amazing amount of file oriented functions built into the system. These can be tapped on the server side to make the kind of process you are talking about simple to implement and manage. And the logging that is included in the application server makes it easy to monitor and adjust the processes.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                    Relax boys!

                    Enough is enough.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                      Wait, we are not through gushing.
                      Jay
                      Jay Talbott
                      Lexington, KY

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                        This man I trust but this thread is suspicious.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                          Happy to add another positive reply to this thread! Very happy Alpha Five users, developing sophisticated web apps for all sorts of businesses. We've even got a video to prove it! See http://start-software.com/software-d...rder-tracking/

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                              What a great Video - just what I needed. - Make the jump you won't be disappointed with Alpha - the 12 months has really seen it shine. We have a Global app in the SAS area coming out soon and its amazing what we have done. Again - funny video.
                              Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
                              Albert Einstein, (attributed)
                              US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Re: Possible New User to Alpha 5 Looking for Opinions/Answers

                                Attn: Doron

                                Just an observation ... you may have moved from Visual FoxPro to Alpha Five, but your website does not appear to even mention Alpha Five.
                                Last edited by Paullm; 01-31-2013, 01:06 PM.

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