Re: GUADEC

[cwiegand startek com (Chris Wiegand)]

At 05:40 PM 3/20/00 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
>Only one bad thing: I did not meet any gnome-db user. Some people had
>tried to compile or install it without success (mainly libgnomeprint
>problem we've had), but no 'real' users were there. But as there are
>many people on the list, I assume you are all users, or not?

The reason I'm on the list is because I'm working on a report engine, and
originally I was thinking of integrating it into gnome-db. However, I
re-thought this out, because of a few things:

* Gnome is a BIG project, and I get intimidated with that sort of thing.

* SQL isn't the best thing for everything (like CSV, XML, LDAP, Apache
Logs, etc...)

* I decided that for non-SQL environments, it would be interesting work to
make SQL fit it, so instead the program reads each table independantly
(leaving out records on the server (if SQL) as apropriate, and sorting if
possible on the SQL server, but verifying in my "client"), and then reads
through and links them together. This also allows me to use multiple data
sources together as one, whereas normal SQL can't do that.

* I don't personally like Gnome programming too much. Way to many
functions, IMHO. Does that mean I think it sucks? No, just that I'm not
ready for it without an encyclopedia set of Gnome functions by my desk. I
do think, however, that end users will use Gnome, or KDE, or whatever suits
their fancy, which leads to...

* I want to make this totally independant of a GUI. I decided this based on
the reports that I do at my work. We have a server that runs all of the
reports, and it has Muscle. So, my program will eventually have report
designers for KDE, Gnome, etc...., a program to "run" the report in command
line, Gnome (through gnome-db?), Katabase, etc... It will be able to use
data sources from Katabase, Gnome-db, or libraries like mysql, etc..., and
finally CSV (already written, although I want to improve it).

* Basically, I want to either compete seriously with Crystal Reports (tm
Seagate) or rule the world.

Oy, what a mouthful. Anyways, that's why I'm on this list. I originally
wanted to just write the reports in Gnome-db only, but had too many reasons
to instead just make hooks into it (will eventually, no, it's not written
yet, I've got my input API done, and am working on my output XML DTD, then
I'll write a text-only and html-templated output engine, then work on the
report engine itself once I've got those working).

If I've offended anyone, please ignore this email and go about your day
normally.