>Sorry, that's not the issue and I don't know how you arrived at that
conclusion. It was pretty unnecessary.
It was more of a generalization of technology adoption practices by the
masses, so I didn't mean to offend you if you took it that way - though I
am implying you are taking some big leaps based on my guess that you
haven't developed what you are considering a good idea. Maybe I am off my
rocker for thinking that downloading the majority of a multi-gigabyte data
base is a bad idea. I just can't imagine it would be a good idea no
matter how much I think about it.
>I just think you'll end up with a browser plug in and in some cases local
data stores providing the answer
Thinking about this some more I realized that this isn't a black and white
issue. For example, there are some data sets that change seldom that
could be cached (i.e. list of states, list of monetary currency, etc) and
then they would re-cache themselves once ever 100 trips to the server or
once a day - whatever happens first. I am just in complete disagreement
that caching of an inventory file on the client would be a good idea given
the assumption that an inventory file is more than likely quite large
*and* would also require a host of other files to accompany it. Who
knows, maybe we have totally different ideas of what an inventory file can
contain.
>Nah, I'm not playing that game.
Fair enough. Have a great Christmas and New Years.
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
Evan Harris wrote:
Not necessarily, I just know how to recognize "technology
over-excitedness" when I see it.
Sorry, that's not the issue and I don't know how you arrived at that
conclusion. It was pretty unnecessary.
It is interesting you bring this up because shops are now trying to get
rid of the PC as much as possible and go back to the mainframe approach
(i.e. everything hosted on a server and accessed via
thinclient/browser).
I don't disagree at all with this. I just think you'll end up with a browser
plug in and in some cases local data stores providing the answer rather than
handcrafting tons of CSS and Javascript and HTML and having everything on
the server - with all the chattiness and overhead that implies. At the very
least you'll be using standard Javascript libraries or a tool to generate
them. That's pretty close to returning the PC to a terminal and that's
pretty much what I see happening.
Alright, your turn :-)
Nah, I'm not playing that game.
Regards
Evan Harris
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
Evan Harris wrote:
Hi Aaron
I don't want to prolong this any more than necessary so I'll try to keep
it
brief, but two points stand out:
You are thinking about doing things the way they have always been done
with
different technology. Why not allocate the order number when it gets
loaded
from the local client into the ERP system ? Uniqueness problem solved. Why
*not* have the inventory file on the users PC ? You only need to
communicate
changes when they go on line. Initializing the file is a one-off effort.
Once again, can you get my point - this is an example of what can be done
if
you want to, not necessarily the answer to the questions you raise. I'm
just
demonstrating that you can solve the problem if you want to.
As far as ROI goes, what appears to make the salespeople and others
productive is what determines ROI. Since it is in a spreadsheet anyone can
make it come out to any number that proves their case (cynicism intended).
I
have never seen yet an IT department win an argument against a
logistics|sales|inventory|purchasing|marketing executive - pick your
title.
Once these operational guys decide something adds value to the business or
offers a strategic advantage IT better deliver. IT's view of ROI will be
overlooked, so your ROI argument is meaningless.
As to your it's only for personal applications comments - were you around
in
1985 to hear how many times the mainframe guys (and others) made the same
comments about minis and PC's ? What the users *want* will drive this
change
regardless of what we think or indeed what is actually the right answer.
Regards
Evan Harris
midrange.com
