Re: Blowback and budgets. - OT

This WebDNA talk-list message is from

2000


It keeps the original formatting.
numero = 26527
interpreted = N
texte = ..it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. - Willam Shakespeare, Macbeth Act V, Scene VI plan on buying a Unix license as soon as I can justify it. I have been using WebCat under NT since before it was in public beta. I am of the opinion that most of the grousing on the list is misplaced; some people think that they should continue to have access to the developers, which was the only support for the first few years of WebCat's life. Other people seem to think that every question should be answered by PCS/SM, no matter how trivial. Other people think that $2500 is a lot of money for a turn-key e-commerce package, even though other commecial e-commerce packages with much higher hardware demands are $10,000 to $25,000.Most of the errors reported on this list are strictly carbon based, i.e. user stupid, please replace! Other bugs dealing with cross-platform issues are actually caused by the underlying O/S or web server software. Some can be worked around, some are harder or even impossible to cure. I am currently paying over $2000 per year for my various Oracle support contracts; I expect instant service at that price, and I can expect to get to second level tech support fairly quickly, if I need it. With version upgrade discounts, I doubt that I have even paid $2500 total for WebCat over the last 3 1/2 years.WebCat is what it is: a very fast RAM based text database, with a distinct bias towards e-commerce functionality. It is not intended to be all things for all people. It would be nice to have better string munging, and a regular expression engine. But I can already do what I want with what WebCat can do; if I need more I can break out into Perl. I doubt most of the more vocal complaints come from people who have ever spent alot of time manning a help desk.If you like WebCat's speed, and the language does most of what you need, stick with it. It would take you 6 months to a year to duplicate it's functionality in Perl or PHP, or some other general purpose language. WebMerchant itself is reason enough to buy WebCat. I think that SM should think about a paid support system, for the people who prefer the jump to the head of the line; I won't need it myself, but it might reduce the amount of off-topic noise on this list. Even though I can probably be considered a WebCat Guru, I still learn new techniques from the list. For example, instead of doing this:[ShowIf [URL][myfield][/URL]=[URL]ValueA[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf][ShowIf [URL][myfield][/URL]=[URL]ValueB[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf][ShowIf [URL][myfield][/URL]=[URL]ValueC[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf]where all you want to know is whether [myfield] is one of the Value's, do this instead:[ShowIf [URL]ValueA ValueB ValueC[/URL]^[URL][myfield][/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf]I wish I could remember who originally suggested this; hope this helps someone else look at a problem from another angle.John Peacock____________________Reply Separator____________________ Subject: Blowback and budgets. Author: (WebCatalog Talk) Date: 1/24/00 11:09 PMIt seems that I've manage to find the one CGI that runs on Mac/NT/Unix that I find easy to understand the code and sift through the logic, and yet I keep hearing a portion of the talk community disgruntled about support for it and SM's dedication to the customers who have purchased the WC/WM bundle or single parts thereof.First question: Are they any other really great CGI's that run side by side with WebStar, MGI?(an issue unless I get my Linux box up and running soon) Second question: Can anyone give one very good positive reason (and Smith Micro feel free to jump in here) as why I should pony up $2500 US greens to purchase this product to wait and find out support gets phased out or to strictly online faq's in 6-12 months?All the web catalog talkers have been quite responsive to my questions and I thank all of you, but if you all had to take a vote today, and by show of hands I'd like a tally, who today would purchase WebCatalog right off the cyberstore shelf knowing what they know now? Whether Unix, NT, or Mac solution, would you buy it?-- David A. Bryant dbryant@jump.net ------------------------------------------------------------- Brought to you by CommuniGate Pro - The Buzz Word Compliant Messaging Server. To end your Mail problems go to .This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list . To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:

    
  1. Re: Blowback and budgets. - OT (Wendell Kozak 2000)
  2. Re: Blowback and budgets. - OT (jpeacock@univpress.com 2000)
..it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. - Willam Shakespeare, Macbeth Act V, Scene VI plan on buying a Unix license as soon as I can justify it. I have been using WebCat under NT since before it was in public beta. I am of the opinion that most of the grousing on the list is misplaced; some people think that they should continue to have access to the developers, which was the only support for the first few years of WebCat's life. Other people seem to think that every question should be answered by PCS/SM, no matter how trivial. Other people think that $2500 is a lot of money for a turn-key e-commerce package, even though other commecial e-commerce packages with much higher hardware demands are $10,000 to $25,000.Most of the errors reported on this list are strictly carbon based, i.e. user stupid, please replace! Other bugs dealing with cross-platform issues are actually caused by the underlying O/S or web server software. Some can be worked around, some are harder or even impossible to cure. I am currently paying over $2000 per year for my various Oracle support contracts; I expect instant service at that price, and I can expect to get to second level tech support fairly quickly, if I need it. With version upgrade discounts, I doubt that I have even paid $2500 total for WebCat over the last 3 1/2 years.WebCat is what it is: a very fast RAM based text database, with a distinct bias towards e-commerce functionality. It is not intended to be all things for all people. It would be nice to have better string munging, and a regular expression engine. But I can already do what I want with what WebCat can do; if I need more I can break out into Perl. I doubt most of the more vocal complaints come from people who have ever spent alot of time manning a help desk.If you like WebCat's speed, and the language does most of what you need, stick with it. It would take you 6 months to a year to duplicate it's functionality in Perl or PHP, or some other general purpose language. WebMerchant itself is reason enough to buy WebCat. I think that SM should think about a paid support system, for the people who prefer the jump to the head of the line; I won't need it myself, but it might reduce the amount of off-topic noise on this list. Even though I can probably be considered a WebCat Guru, I still learn new techniques from the list. For example, instead of doing this:[ShowIf [url][myfield][/URL]=[url]ValueA[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf][ShowIf [url][myfield][/URL]=[url]ValueB[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf][ShowIf [url][myfield][/URL]=[url]ValueC[/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf]where all you want to know is whether [myfield] is one of the Value's, do this instead:[ShowIf [url]ValueA ValueB ValueC[/URL]^[url][myfield][/URL]] [!]somthing here[/!] [/ShowIf]I wish I could remember who originally suggested this; hope this helps someone else look at a problem from another angle.John Peacock____________________Reply Separator____________________ Subject: Blowback and budgets. Author: (WebCatalog Talk) Date: 1/24/00 11:09 PMIt seems that I've manage to find the one CGI that runs on Mac/NT/Unix that I find easy to understand the code and sift through the logic, and yet I keep hearing a portion of the talk community disgruntled about support for it and SM's dedication to the customers who have purchased the WC/WM bundle or single parts thereof.First question: Are they any other really great CGI's that run side by side with WebStar, MGI?(an issue unless I get my Linux box up and running soon) Second question: Can anyone give one very good positive reason (and Smith Micro feel free to jump in here) as why I should pony up $2500 US greens to purchase this product to wait and find out support gets phased out or to strictly online faq's in 6-12 months?All the web catalog talkers have been quite responsive to my questions and I thank all of you, but if you all had to take a vote today, and by show of hands I'd like a tally, who today would purchase WebCatalog right off the cyberstore shelf knowing what they know now? Whether Unix, NT, or Mac solution, would you buy it?-- David A. Bryant dbryant@jump.net ------------------------------------------------------------- Brought to you by CommuniGate Pro - The Buzz Word Compliant Messaging Server. To end your Mail problems go to .This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list . To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to jpeacock@univpress.com

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