RE: I'd rather do it myself -- MIDRANGE-L

I agree, Chris, but there are those of us out there that try to help.  For
example, my shareware tool, SPLTOOL, does what a lot of the other ones out
there do that sell for $1500 or more (a lot more).  And I ask a mere $60 if
you decided it's for you.  Peanuts.  Also, I have others that are free that
people sell for hundreds of dollars.  Also, I never charge for any source
code that I put out there.
 
Sure, the vendors charge an arm and a leg, but there are those out there
that don't  The BEST example I can think of is WRKDBF.  I used this as
thought "holy crap...  just think if you could market this..."  Thats
because myself, along with others that have written tools, know what it
takes to do certain things. 
 
But, the "do it myself" attitude comes in, and when that fails, vendors get
the sales, not shareware authors.  Just search deja.com for burning spooled
files onto CDs.  I must have replied a million times that SPLTOOL will do it
for you (at least get it to the PC).  Even in batch mode at night!  But
still others reply with the vendor software, even if they haven't tried
either of them.  I do get a loyal user now and then replying.  But that has
just started as my sight gains more exposure.
 
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I agree, but I think it's the vendors
that charge too much for some of their programs.  And until we as a
community take AS/400 shareware seriously, then prices will drop.  Just look
at software in the PC market.  $30 for a WYSIWYG HTML editor... that works!
That's competition...  
 
Oh well, at least Europe likes my shareware (50% of the users are from
Italy, France, and Germany).  Just don't call me David Hasselhoff!  <BG>
Bradley V. Stone 
BVS/Tools - www.bvstools.com 
Netshare400 - www.netshare400.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Bipes [mailto:rpg@cross-check.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 3:29 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: I'd rather do it myself


The problem I see is the fact that AS400 programs want an arm and a leg for
there general purpose procedures.  Recently a lot of byte went around this
list about how to center text in a field.  Well, has someone written it with
some other helpful string routines such as right justify the field?  Can I
purchase this for say 10 - 20 dollars?  It is not worth the hundreds I have
seen for other wrapper type procedures.  Just look at the FTP batch clients
available.  Way to much money when for a tenth of the cost I can purchase a
PC based one.  IMHO this greed is what is keeping such libraries of
functions off the market for the AS400.
 

Christopher K. Bipes     mailto:ChrisB@Cross-Check.com
<mailto:ChrisB@Cross-Check.com>  
Sr. Programmer/Analyst   mailto:Chris_Bipes@Yahoo.com
<mailto:Chris_Bipes@Yahoo.com>  
CrossCheck, Inc.         http://www.cross-check.com
<http://www.cross-check.com/>  
6119 State Farm Drive    Phone: 707 586-0551 x 1102 
Rohnert Park CA  94928 Fax: 707 586-1884 

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