[futurebasic] [XFB] A Fantastic Success Story IMHO

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From: Joe Lewis Wilkins <PepeToo@...>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 14:47:42 -0700
Hi Guys,

I really need to share this story.  I have a series of HyperCard Stacks that I
have tabbed "EASIER™ Done than Said™".  Today I would not hesitate to create
this system of interrelated "modules" in FB^3, probably using Valentina as the
DB,  but this was all done about 12 years ago.  In order to make this system
acceptably fast I wrote and compiled about 150 XCMDs and XFCNs in HyperTalk,
but it is still, basically, HyperCard.  Last year, my client was merging with
two like businesses to form a much larger company.  The other two companies
were using a variety of Windoze products to do the same work that my system of
HyperCard Modules accomplishes.  There was a lot of debate as to what they
were going to do. Mac with my System, or PCs with something else.  My guy was
out voted, and about 6 months ago they hired someone else to put together
something to do the job.  April 1st, my birthday BTW, they went on line with
this new system.  I won't describe the problems, but one month and a couple of
days later, I get a call on Saturday morning with a cry of "help!"  They spent
3 times what I had originally quoted for the expanded system, and they are now
trashing all of this Windoze madness, giving me a nice bonus if I can do my
work and get them going by the first of June. Unfortunately, in that time
frame, I will have to stick with what is already done and is working, but even
in HyperCard, the Windoze version takes about three times longer to accomplish
the same tasks, and is less accurate in every respect.  Of course that part is
not the fault of Windoze, but it does reflect on the quality of the Windoze
programmers in general.  These guys had all of the appropriate MS
accreditation, and the spirit and vitality of youth, going for them.  We're
throwing out the PCs, and we're installing iMacs.

My only regret is that I will not have the luxury of recreating  EASIER™ Done
than Said™ in FB^3, though I may still  do so on my own, after the fact if
Apple fails to Update HyperCard in the very near future.  This one set of
modules was responsible for indirectly selling at least 100 Macs and dozens of
printers over the period in which it was used, starting with SE/30s and now
with iMacs and G4s in the back offices.

What was the big difference between EASIER™ and the Windoze program? A clean,
simple GUI that was easy on the eyes - literally - and didn't present the user
with more options than they needed to be concerned with at the time.  These
Users are not rocket scientists, but the complexity of the Windoze solution
might even have baffled the best.

I hope this was of interest to some, particularly when you're in the trenches
fighting the "Darkside".

Joe Lewis Wilkins
Architect/Programmer/Author
General Editor of "FB^3 - the Book"
A Macintosh Developer's Guide to FutureBASIC Programming
************************************************
Author of "The University of HyperCard"© a Dynamic Tutorial Series
appearing at:  http://www.macinstruct.com/tutorials/tutorials/misc.shtml