Tell me it's not true

Hi E-letter :)
What Dan has already done for Base is pretty huge.  However it is in an area that is undervalued within OpenSource communities.  Allegedly it's one of the commonest blockers preventing increased uptake or at least it's one of the most commonly given excuses.  People get all excited about coding and expect other areas to just happen by magic.  Also what he has said has played out the way he predicted so it's not hurt him. 
Regards from
Tom :)


--- On Thu, 1/3/12, e-letter <[hidden email]> wrote:
On 29/02/2012, Dan Lewis <[hidden email]> wrote:

<snip />

>      OK, I have had my say. I will likely delete any replies that come
> from this thread because I have seen people justify their actions in the
> past threads. This is suppose to be a list to help others, and their
> comments are not likely to do that. Besides, any replies to me need to
> consist of references for getting the most from Base. Other than help in
> learning more about how to use it, I don't need.
>

Your loss...


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On 03/01/2012 05:02 PM, Mark Stanton wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Was that instability with an "internal" HSQL database?
>
> Mark Stanton
> One small step for mankind...
I will be more specific:

I used the internal HSQL database for each proejct. Each database was
sufficiently complex that I required a complex series of macros to
fulfill my needs. For example:

Simple inventory that also stores images (could be a receipt, picture,
whatever). So, I needed functionality that allowed for adding,
extracting, deleting, and moving through the images. The entire system
appeared to not be sufficiently robust to handle all of the image files
as the size of the database grew. It is also possible that API changes
were the issue. The only evidence that I had was that adding one more
image caused corruption and the entire DB was no longer usable. I
suspect that if I had used a better backend that could handle the size
then I would not have experienced this particular problem. To put things
into perspective, I was running a 64-bit system with 12 GB of RAM and
the last working DB was 45MB in size.

I created a contact DB that required numerous macros to add entries that
tracked things such as "yeah, I managed to get in touch with them on
this date to this effect". I did not use the DB often, but it was very
common for a new release to break the system and I had to change my
macros so that things continued to function. Last time this happened
(while tracking a different kind of inventory DB dealing with
collectibles) I decided that enough was enough and I did not want to fix
my macros anymore.

When I had a working system, I never had an issue loading Base and going
directly to the tables. I was able, therefore, to manually copy all
tables to a Calc document and then export to a CSV file (ignoring things
such as binary data).

It should be noted that I spent a bunch of time just creating the macros
to make the system work. For a complex system, Base still took a lot of
time for me to accomplish complex things; for example, help and fill
capability when I want the user to select from a human readable value
but store the underlying ID.

--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php


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On 03/01/2012 05:04 PM, Andreas Säger wrote: Yeah, in retrospect, that is what I should have done. Would have avoided
the DB too large issue as well. I am working (time permitting) on a C++
implementation in QT that does exactly this.

--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php


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On 03/01/2012 04:46 PM, Tom Davies wrote:
> I don't understand any of the technicalities of what the devs are
> saying about their process but Cor and Alex are saying completely
> opposite sounding things so it sounds as though there must be a
> bottle-neck somewhere.

I provided more clarification in another reply

> It would be vastly more helpful to join in with the devs that are doing coding work for Base.  According to Cor there are quite a few people doing such work.  However according to Alex there are never many commits (or something).  So, if one of the  bottle-necks is just that someone is needed to do the equivalent of proof-reading and pushing through QA then it would be fantastic to do that  rather than try to create soemothing new from scratch that benefits no-one else and that gets no help from anyone else either.

At the end of the day, it is an issue of time. I am behind on numerous
pieces of documentation, and even when it works, it will take a
significant investment in time to implement in Base and I still have the
limitations of Base. As time is available, I am trying to find some
other bugs that are very difficult for me to find. Off hand, it provides
me more benefit in new knowledge gained (because it is something that I
can use at work to earn money) if I build my own. It takes a bit more
time, but I don't expect it to break with the next release (well, not as
often anyway).

The better use of my time would have been to be purposeful of testing
all of my DB applications against RCs so that I could have filed
blockers. One issue, however, is that I cannot release the data
contained in the DBs that I created.

--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php


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On 03/01/2012 05:06 PM, e-letter wrote:
> On 29/02/2012, Dan Lewis<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> On Wed, 2012-02-29 at 10:01 -0500, drew jensen wrote:
>>       What would most people who are new to Base think after reading the
>> negative comments about Base? Statements about how hard it is to learn
>> (comparing learning at least some of it to the difficulty of learning a
>> new language). No one seems to be able to give references that would
>> help. (No one has so far.)
> In previous other posts, there have been references to good OO
> tutorial documents about base.

I created a frequently downloaded document that demonstrates numerous
Macro methods using Base.

Note that I did not advise against it, I merely stated why I don't use
it much anymore.


--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php


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Thank you.  It doesn't have all the minerals but it does cut down on
the number of terms marked misspelled.  And that dictionary will be
useful for other projects.

Jerry

At 09:22 AM 2/29/2012, you wrote:
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Am 01.03.2012 23:02, Mark Stanton wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Was that instability with an "internal" HSQL database?
>
> Mark Stanton
> One small step for mankind...
>
>
>

The .odb file claims to be a document but in fact it is an extension.
When you open the file and then open one of its objects, the embedded
HSQLDB will be extracted to the temporary office directory so it works
exactly like an external database in cached mode.
If your form/report/other office component crashes during this
installation process, the whole backend database is lost. Similar
problem when you close the "document" and something weird happens during
the repackaging. Sometimes you can reconstruct the backend from the
temporary files.
According to the forums, the total loss of an embedded HSQLDB happens
quite often. This flaw is the total knock out for any program that
claims to be a database.

I used to use one fairly complex embedded HSQLDB for a period of 18
months. The development time was a full weekend for the backend and
simple forms plus another weekend for the advanced forms. I worked with
it one hour per work day beeing the one and only operator of that thing.
  It grew up to a document size of 5 MB. I made a backup before every
session but this particular file always worked reliably and never
crashed. I did not need any macros at all since I know some SQL tricks
and I am not miffed because of one click more than necessary.

So yes, I made my own positive experience with that "embedded HSQL".
Nevertheless setting up a database server in order to work with "the
real thing" is such a tiny effort and it can give so much more safety,
security and performance that I do not recommend the embedded version.


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Le 01/03/2012 23:02, Mark Stanton a écrit :

Hi Mark,

> Was that instability with an "internal" HSQL database?
>

The instability issues of "internal" HSQLDB databases within ODB files
is well documented on the OOo Forum, along with suggestions for avoiding
or minimizing those issues.

The basic line of reasoning goes : "switch to a non-integrated db
backend, be it hsqldb (file mode or client/server mode), H2, SQLite or
some other db engine", with the reasoning being that your data is more
precious than any form or query or pipe dream you could ever want in an
ODB file.


And for the benefit of Dan, a documented link of how to do this :

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=97522


Alex


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Le 01/03/2012 18:45, Mark Stanton a écrit :


>
> Oho!  So it hasn't!  Between us we should get it done pretty quickly :-D
>

:-)) In between two cups of coffee in the morning or late at night, it
is amazing what can be done when one is otherwise bored... ;-)


Alex


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Am 29.02.2012 14:36, e-letter wrote:
>
> Interesting; suggests that base exists just to answer the question by
> m$ fans: "where is the equivalent to acce$$?
>

Right, at a first glance it is nothing but Access mimicry.

> Maybe base should be removed from LO entirely and a separate database
> product be developed, perhaps able to include some aspects of the
> "spreadsheet paradigm" to data manipulation.
>

The "spreadsheet paradigm" does not work in a database. The purpose is
to be compatible with *any* of the commonly used SQL servers while
treating tabular files in the context of the database paradigm. For
instance, Base reads a spreadsheet so its list content can be used as if
it were a structured database. It is not intended to be the other way round.
Apart from this, nothing will ever stop people using the calculator to
organize their data in crude ways. They do not follow any design
concepts and the spreadsheet allows them to dump their stuff any way
they want. So be it.

All the connectable external database servers do not provide anything
like a "spreadsheet paradigm". The functionality of a database is
completely different to spreadsheets. It is analogue to bitmaps and
vector graphic.
Something like the MS Works database rolls completely on its own
proprietary rails. The development of such a component would be
expensive and the result would not be as useful as the current database
connectivity.
Just drop these "easy peasy" database development toys. There is no need
to create databases from scratch. Other programs do this perfectly well
and the resulting structures can be connected to this office suite.
Except for the report generators, the database toys are obsolete. Report
generation is a unidirectional process which yields ODF documents.
Form design is more like writing a program for an alleged end user. The
program needs to read from and write to the underlying database. This is
where wizard technology falls way too short unless you invest extreme
amounts of development resources.
The simple tools that are provided for manual from design are very well
suited but unknown and undocumented.


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> I created a frequently downloaded document that demonstrates numerous
> Macro methods using Base.

And very good it is too!

Mark Stanton
One small step for mankind...



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Am 02.03.2012 04:25, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:
Nor did I. Base is our most used component. We run 4 PCs where at least
one Base form is open all the time during the work day.
And of course we use Base together with a free database server since the
freedom of use includes the obediance to standardized interfaces.
We have no spreadsheet nor letter template that is not bound to a data
source of some kind.
Base saves us a lot of money because we don't have to buy all the
additional modules of our licensed software.

Base has a lot of most prominently shown but most obsolete wizard tools
which are not required to work productively with databases. Quite often
these wizards do the wrong thing or they do the right thing wrongly.
So I recommend not to use the most prominently shown parts of Base.
Using the manual desingn tools together with the command line is by far
more productive if you know what needs to be done.

This is what this whole thread is about. Letting Mark Stanton build a
Writer report based on alleged relations between his dBase tables
although the built-in driver does not support relations, thus it can not
merge the contents of different tables.


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I wonder how many of the mineral type of words are in my largest
dictionary[s]?  It[they] has[have] over 638,000 words in it.
http://libreoffice-na.us/English-3.4-installs/dictionary.html#english
My dictionaries start with "kpp" in this list of "English" dictionaries.

Well, if I had a typed source of all of the needed words, in a list or a
document that can be converted to a list, then it is easy to add them to
an existing dictionary or create one specifically for it.

I would not trust me typing skills to type up a list of minerals from a
printed source.  So, having a "text" document for the computer to
convert to a list of words is not hard.  BUT if the words are to go in a
spelling list, then they must be spelled correctly.

If I had a trusted source for the words, I would add them to a
"specialized" list for science related words.



On 03/02/2012 01:13 AM, Libre User wrote:

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Hi :)
Blimey!  That looks like more than 2 cups of coffee each!
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq#Base
Regards from
Tom :)


--- On Fri, 2/3/12, Alex Thurgood <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Alex Thurgood <[hidden email]>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Tell me it's not true
To: [hidden email]
Date: Friday, 2 March, 2012, 7:31

Le 01/03/2012 18:45, Mark Stanton a écrit :


>
> Oho!  So it hasn't!  Between us we should get it done pretty quickly :-D
>

:-)) In between two cups of coffee in the morning or late at night, it
is amazing what can be done when one is otherwise bored... ;-)


Alex


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Hi :)

You know you ca right-click on a word that has a red-wriggle and "Add to dictionary"?  Then later in the same document and any future documents that word would be accepted. 

The tricky bit would be keeping a copy of your modified dictionary backed-up somewhere.  if you can work out how to do that and also send Tim (webmaster@krackedpress) a copy then he could probably work with that to create a specialist dictionary for chemicals and minerals. 

I think you can have more than one dictionary loaded at a time and the "Add to dictionary" looks like it is set-up to offer a choice of dictionaries to add the word to.  I guess it would be really great for most of us to start our own dictionaries of technical words for whichever area we work in but i haven't a clue how to do that either so i just add to the standard dictionary each time. 

Regards from
Tom :)



--- On Fri, 2/3/12, Libre User <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Libre User <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Specialized dictionary
To: [hidden email]
Date: Friday, 2 March, 2012, 6:13

Thank you.  It doesn't have all the minerals but it does cut down on
the number of terms marked misspelled.  And that dictionary will be
useful for other projects.

Jerry

At 09:22 AM 2/29/2012, you wrote:
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That "add to word list" type of thing is what I did to get some of the
words I used for these emails to include in my next version[s] of my big
word list dictionaries.

I think there was about 800 +/- to 1,000 +/- words going to be added to
each list.  I have to do some work on the dictionaries to get them ready
for publication.  Actually I cannot find the updated lists.  They are
not in my "word list folder" so I have to rebuild them, again, or I just
forgot where that folder really is.

Been really busy, so I have not had time in the last months to do the
work needed.  Rebuilding them is running the word list files and the new
word list[s] through a package and then changing the .oxt files.  That
is 11 current ones, plus one new one.  The 638K lists will go to 639K
and there will be one en_US that is over 700K as the new one.

So yes, if someone has a text file of a list of words that are the
CORRECT spelling, I can make a modified dictionary .oxt file to include
those words, either as a separate .dic file in the .oxt file or included
in the en_US, en_CA, or en_GB .dic files.

I could have a 1 million word list, but they are words that have
alternative and rare spellings for many words, and they are not
completely verified.  Now having mineral names as will as other science
names/terms [including medical and chemical words] would be good to have
for a larger word list.  I think the planned 700K+ list does have US
medical and chemistry words in it.



On 03/02/2012 11:10 AM, Tom Davies wrote:


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