I don't intend the following statement to sound mean nor condescending at all, it's just a raw statement of fact:
The OP does not actually intend, nor seek, to become better as a database developer. They just want to keep doing what they are doing and talk about it. Every post shows this. I.E.,
that might be the better way, but I'm not going to do it type of stuff.
Which is perfectly fine, if very odd and perhaps not likely to be received well by members of a forum devoted to becoming better at DB development.
I'm unwatching this thread only because continuing on the path of not wanting to become better does not interest me from a technical forum perspective, although it might if we were just tossing around watercooler comments, but I'd not want to delve into that in a 'technical' forum ....
That's fine Isaac, I create different kinds of applications than most developers on AWF. My applications use graphics, speech, and animation because I am a visual thinker. I have been saying that for years.
Someone commented about this years ago in a circa 2000 Access Advisor magazine article. This well known developer mentioned that frequently developers do not consider the visual importance of data. That caused me to focus more on visualization, not less, because now I have found a professional developer with expertise coding and normalization, and the two of us can develop superior applications. So I have done that.
During needs assessments, I ask the what, why, when, and who questions. What does the person or team want to do? Why are different tasks performed? When are different tasks performed? And, who on a team does different tasks?
The other person asks the how and why questions. How does the person(s) assigned to a task do the work? Why is a decision needed? Where does the information come from? Together, we address the 5 Ws for our applications.
I think that there is nothing worse than developing a perfectly built application that folks won't use. With 60 to 80% of the population being visual thinkers, my focus on graphics will pay off in the long run. Our projects will be more successful.
Personally, I won't use an application that doesn't have visuals. If just 50% of my family is the same way, then it is worth spending time on graphics and speech.
My database also moves the calculations to the forms. So if you change a number or a checkmark on a form, the calculated values on the form change immediately. There is no back and forth to the server or BE.
I try to speed up calculations as much as possible. My main forms almost always will have several calculated values. I do that because I know users will be on the phone with someone else, and those people will want immediate answers to their questions.
My forms also have numerous checkboxes, and they use lots of conditional formatting (CF), by design. One of my forms has more than 45 boxes that use conditional formatting. I doubt that many database professionals have that many boxes and use that much CF with their speech-enabled applications.
So development needs both accurate and visually attractive data. I focus on the latter. My associate focuses on the former. Together, we will develop superior applications.
Lastly, the speech (TTS) that I use in my applications doesn't read blocks of data from a table(s). My statements tell the listener about the information on a form or report. The statements use contextual information and data. For example, the database may say, "Fred, this week you spent 123 dollars at the Walmart store on Fifth Avenue and Vine Street." Then it may say, "You exceeded your weekly food budget by 15 dollars." And then it may say, "Please explain this to your wife, Sally. She will not be happy."
