Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

[MikeC]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

Although I agree that Alpha's intentions are well placed and I hope I am completely wrong in my assessment, but I do not think the Wiki will replace or even come close to the amount of knowledge or even have the ability to find said knowledge any better than the present messageboard and help files.

Why?? Because from what I can tell, they are only going to be utilizing the current documentation. If they were to place the messageboard contents into it and somehow organize the information with cross referencing, then that would be a totally different scenario.

John,

one desktop section for a5v9

Separating out the various components of the messageboard will only help a minute amount IMO. It will not aid in any knowledge search at all...well unless a user decides to narrow the search to ONLY one forum which really limits the amount of information and solutions one would find. Any search on the messageboard should include ALL of the forums as most problems/solutions are not version specific (I have found many solutions for current versions even from Alpha Four forums).

Getting back to the Wiki. For it to be a success, it will have to have a lot of contributors....and some sort of monitoring to ensure the solutions given are correct. That is how this messageboard works now. When something is posted that is misleading or even outright incorrect, many here will chime in and fix it. Is this going to happen on the Wiki? Doubtful, unless the Alphaholics from this board stop frequenting the board and go over to the Wiki. I, for one, would simply not have the time to do both....I even have a hard time reading every post every day as I am currently doing.

Regardless, I do appreciate that Alpha has initiated this effort to appease the wants of its userbase, even if I believe currently that it won't be enough (again, hope I'm completely wrong!!!!).

:)

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

The subject lines chosen by the posters is often careless.

I guess. But that's a funny way to put it. Message board users are not paid Alpha employees, so the subject lines may indeed be "careless". Whadaya want for nuthin? ;)

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

When I highlight, copy, then paste, the results are always double spaced.

I know how to remove the empty lines with the code editor,but wondered if there was a way to copy without getting them.

Bill,

I feel your pain. I use the following function:

'Date Created: 21-Jul-2008 04:14:40 PM
'Last Updated: 04-May-2009 03:45:32 PM
'Created By  : PG
'Updated By  : Peter Greulich

FUNCTION f_BlankDelete AS V ( )
    ''Remove blank lines from text data in the Window's clipboard
    
    vClipContents = CLIPBOARD.GET_DATA()
    vLineNos = w_count(vClipContents,crlf())
    IF vLineNos = 0
        EXIT FUNCTION
    END IF
    
    vNewClipper = ""
    FOR i = 1 TO vLineNos
        vLine = ALLTRIM(word(vClipContents,i,crlf()))
        
        IF vLine = ""
            .T.        ''skip to next line if current line is blank
        ELSE
            vNewClipper = vNewClipper + vLine + crlf()
        END IF
    next
    
    CLIPBOARD.SET_DATA(vNewClipper)
END FUNCTION

[gmeredith17]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

Doubtful, unless the Alphaholics from this board stop frequenting the board and go over to the Wiki. I, for one, would simply not have the time to do both....I even have a hard time reading every post every day as I am currently doing.

Mike, I kind of envisioned it working in tandem with the message board. Instead of posting links to the help file you would post them to the wiki and maybe at the end of a thread when a new dilemma has been solved the solution could be posted to the wiki. It's not going to be the answer to everyone's prayers but hopefully in addition to other sources that are available it will help. It shouldn't replace the help files or the message board but if only further script examples are added to the many functions available in Alpha it will be a blessing. I like to have lots of examples of the implementation of functions and find the help can be a little light in this area.

I think your concerns over monitoring the contents of the wiki are valid. That is one of the downsides of having it open to everyone but hopefully that will be a minor issue. Time will tell.

[mmaisterrena]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

First of all "Im Sorry Alpha guys but I couldt help it"

messing arround with alpha URL I foud this
http://www.wiki.alphasoftware.com/tiki-index.php

again Im sorry if I just messed up something by posting this

[Richard Rabins]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

thats the downside of the internet - if it is there - it will be found - especially with the "sleuths" that we have in the alpha community:)

I Would ask that people hold off on going the WIKI - We have not finished setting it up and we are also moving it from a VPS to a dedicated Server(s) before we go live.

The goal is for the WIKI to complement other methods for getting information on Alpha Five and in no way is meant to replace the message board. The other benefits of the WIKI are that we will be able to let Alpha Five developers share content (words and screen recordings) once it has gone through a checking process. The benefit of this is that this additional content will become part of the knowledgebase for the product and will be easy to find. Finally the WIKI (because it is content rich) will help increase the SEO profile of Alpha Five and the developers who contribute to it

[DaveM]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

All that has been discussed here still does not answer why IT pros have not heard of Alpaha.

The wiki may help a little, but it still starts in an infant stage with students and teachers. Forgive me for pounding this at Alpha and others, but after seeing churches/religeons founded and grown through the ages by coddling the young, I can't help but pound at it.

The young today are the teachers and ITs of tomorrow.

If Alpha is in the schools, ITs will start hearing about it real quick, not just when they get older.

The schools are what Apple did to stay in business.

We all need Alpha strong and viable in our selling area so we can make and sell our software. We need to be proud of what we are able to do and our tools.

As a mechanic, I used snap-on tools not only because they had the name but also because they were the best. They helped protect my hands from cuts and bruises. Walk into a mechanics shop looking for a job with a snap-on box in your truck and you were hired much quicker than the guys with the craftsman box or any others.



.

[mmaisterrena]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

I think that we could be overly critic with alpha. Maybe if we answered the same questions we are asking we would get the answer we are looking for:

• Why my company isn't as popular as Microsoft? (it even sounds a little dumb)
  
• Why don't I hire a professional visual design Team? (not that alpha doesn't have any good designers)
  
• Why don't I document in detail every application I develop?

Well you need a lot time, qualified personnel and of course money to do all of this, Alpha Software is a company that confronts lots of challenges every day as all of us, and they have to decide which of this challenges have the highest priority and attack them with their limited resources, given that I think they are all ready taking some action on some of the issues (all true) discussed on this post.

The thing that concerns me more is the dependence of the company to 2 people ( excellent people by the way ;) ) I think that alpha should advance into a more corporate and less family driven business system, not that I know their current business model but they give the impression that the company is a little too dependent on you know whom.

Cheers
Mauricio

[seaken64]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

I guess. But that's a funny way to put it. Message board users are not paid Alpha employees, so the subject lines may indeed be "careless". Whadaya want for nuthin? ;)

I hear you, Peter. I know that we are not paid to contribute to the forum. But I come from long way back where the Sysops on bulletin boards always insisted that we think about the subject line carefully before we start typing, even changing the subject line after we have finished our message. The idea is that the subject lines got indexed and the searches were more relevant if the words in the subject were on topic. It's just a pet peeve of mine. I hate scanning a list of messages with subjects like "Help!" or "Here's a question for ya". I also know that the search engines are better than they used to be. But it still bugs me. But you're right, can't ask for too much when it's for "nuthin".

Sean

[DMZMAN]

Re: Selwyn: Why haven't more IT pro's heard of Alpha?

Dear All

I come from +18years building applications using DataEase (from DOS to WIN versions).

I am very new to Alpha, and I believe it is a great product. However I too feel the:

- lack of exposure by IS professionals..."Alpha What?"

many thanks
josef

Just making the jump to A5 coming off 27 years building apps in DataEase which included the World Trade Center Disaster app for the NYC Medical Examiner's Office Steve Wood referred to.

Tired of hearing "Data Who?" Some of the jokes included renaming a movie "Horton Hears a Database".

When Bill Gates was shopping for a database back in the mid 80's, DataEase was his first pick. But to make a long story short, the DataEase powers that be at that time screwed up Gate's offer which resulted in Gates giving them the finger. Had they used their heads and not been so greedy, it's highly likely DataEase, or whatever Microsoft might have renamed it would be the world database standard today, not Abscess.

As for IT Departments knowing it existed, it quietly became the standard at MANY major corporations including banks and telecommunications companies, some of which provided me with lucrative consulting contracts as a result of having little competition back before they started competing with the consultants which pissed everybody off. As for the 9-11 project, I was shoe-in being the last remaining DataEase consultant living in Manhattan at the time.