Re: WebDNA version?
This WebDNA talk-list message is from 2007
It keeps the original formatting.
numero = 68963
interpreted = N
texte = Clint Davis wrote: > On 5/4/07 12:48 PM, "Donovan Brooke"
wrote: > >> Clint has recently posted quite a lot of examples of probably my biggest pet >> peeve about, what seems to be synonymous with, main-stream technologies. More >> busy work! It's kinda like the PC vs. Mac thing... I guarantee you that if >> you have two system administrators, both who manage a multi-server >> environment, the PC admin will have much more work to do on a time basis than >> the Mac admin. In fact the Mac Admin may very well have to fight for his/her >> validity in a department. ;-) ...Same with PHP vs. WebDNA, Constant security >> patches, paid upgrades, make PHP more time intensive, thus losing the energy >> (costs) to results value. > > I don't read your comments as any type of personal attack, but I still want > to respond with some reasoning. I'm a Mac guy and always have been. I agree > with the simplicity. I applaud Apple for bringing us the Intel machines that > let me run OS X full-time while running Window$ XP in a window for > cross-platform development testing. I come from a design background, but I > migrated into web development and system administration with lots of > trial-by-fire training. > > Our company has been developing websites and web-based applications since > 1998. We originally used Filemaker Pro for some limited database-type stuff > since it was very Mac-friendly. We had our own WebSTAR 2 server to host on, > so we had some flexibility there. Then, we moved to WebDNA 3 when our local > hosting partner suggested it as another more-powerful, Mac-friendly product. > We had moved on to WebSTAR 3 by this time. We eventually moved to WebSTAR 5 > since it ran under OS X. There were several bulletin boards an other add-on > products that required CGI or PHP to run. It became an enormous P.I.T.A. to > try to get this stuff up and going with WebSTAR, so we bought an Xserve and > put iTools on it to host with Apache with providing more flexibility than > Apple's Apache GUI. > > Up until last fall, we were developing on WebDNA exclusively. Our city may > have had the highest cluster of WebDNA developers at one time, since our > hosting partner had recruited other developers in town to adopt WebDNA also. > We had 3 people in-house, and I know of at least 4 other people in the city > that were using it. > > As requests for additional add-on software increased, it was becoming almost > impossible to integrate with WebDNA. While the RAM-based database system was > fast, we found it to have some stability issues. There were several times > throughout our WebDNA history that databases were truncated when WebSTAR or > Apache took a big crap. This has happened as recently as February when we > lost over 100k records during a server crash. > > Last Fall, we made the decision to move to PHP/MySQL based on several > factors: > 1. We hate Microsoft and didn't want to use .NET. > 2. PHP has thousands of developers worldwide that can freelance or offer > free code. > 3. We wanted the reliability of disk-based databases. > 4. There are countless books, websites, blogs, and usergroups dedicated to > PHP. > 5. Smith Micro completely dropped the ball with WebDNA with their silence > and lack of support. This was the straw that broke the camels back. > > I have built some extremely feature-rich and complex applications with > WebDNA, and I haven't seen any other server-side language that can compete > with it's simplicity. With all this being said, I have no regrets in moving > to PHP/MySQL. For us, it's been a natural progression. The main-stream > nature of PHP has been very beneficial when learning. And I don't fault your reasoning one bit for the move. I *am* somewhat familiar with much of your story :-) ... as I've been on many of the lists you are on for quite some time. And to be clear, I'm glad you didn't take my comments as an attack of any kind because they were (of course) not. Your story is yet another good example of the apparent tragedy of WebDNA's demise (as it sure seems). My point was simply, you are now having to go down a road I'm all too familiar with.. which is busy work.. doing patches, configurations, etc.. etc.. all this stuff which is taking time/resources away from making beautiful, feature rich, websites (though I'm sure you do that as well). Clint, what "additional add-on" software are you specifically talking about which aided in your decision to switch? Also, I haven't experienced the truncating you're talking about... is this in the archives?? or was it ever a documented bug that has or needs to be fixed? For your number 3, "disk-based" databases... WebDNA can be (and is) "disk-based" as well. I do know the integrity differences between SQL and Tab-Deliminated... and that is probably more what you are referring to... but then again, WebDNA can interact with MySQL right? So, I guess I would take issue with some of your reasoning, but in the end, I can't fault your move one bit. The SMSI thing is a big enough reason by itself. Donovan -- =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o DONOVAN D. BROOKE EUCA Design Center <- Web Development (specializing in eCommerce),-> <- Desktop Publishing, Print Consulting, Labels -> <-Glass Products, off-hand Classes/studio rental-> PH:> (608) 835-2476 | Forum:> http://egg.bz/forum/ Web Sites:> http://www.euca.us & http://www.egg.bz =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Web Archive of this list is at: http://webdna.smithmicro.com/
Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:
Clint Davis wrote: > On 5/4/07 12:48 PM, "Donovan Brooke" wrote: > >> Clint has recently posted quite a lot of examples of probably my biggest pet >> peeve about, what seems to be synonymous with, main-stream technologies. More >> busy work! It's kinda like the PC vs. Mac thing... I guarantee you that if >> you have two system administrators, both who manage a multi-server >> environment, the PC admin will have much more work to do on a time basis than >> the Mac admin. In fact the Mac Admin may very well have to fight for his/her >> validity in a department. ;-) ...Same with PHP vs. WebDNA, Constant security >> patches, paid upgrades, make PHP more time intensive, thus losing the energy >> (costs) to results value. > > I don't read your comments as any type of personal attack, but I still want > to respond with some reasoning. I'm a Mac guy and always have been. I agree > with the simplicity. I applaud Apple for bringing us the Intel machines that > let me run OS X full-time while running Window$ XP in a window for > cross-platform development testing. I come from a design background, but I > migrated into web development and system administration with lots of > trial-by-fire training. > > Our company has been developing websites and web-based applications since > 1998. We originally used Filemaker Pro for some limited database-type stuff > since it was very Mac-friendly. We had our own WebSTAR 2 server to host on, > so we had some flexibility there. Then, we moved to WebDNA 3 when our local > hosting partner suggested it as another more-powerful, Mac-friendly product. > We had moved on to WebSTAR 3 by this time. We eventually moved to WebSTAR 5 > since it ran under OS X. There were several bulletin boards an other add-on > products that required CGI or PHP to run. It became an enormous P.I.T.A. to > try to get this stuff up and going with WebSTAR, so we bought an Xserve and > put iTools on it to host with Apache with providing more flexibility than > Apple's Apache GUI. > > Up until last fall, we were developing on WebDNA exclusively. Our city may > have had the highest cluster of WebDNA developers at one time, since our > hosting partner had recruited other developers in town to adopt WebDNA also. > We had 3 people in-house, and I know of at least 4 other people in the city > that were using it. > > As requests for additional add-on software increased, it was becoming almost > impossible to integrate with WebDNA. While the RAM-based database system was > fast, we found it to have some stability issues. There were several times > throughout our WebDNA history that databases were truncated when WebSTAR or > Apache took a big crap. This has happened as recently as February when we > lost over 100k records during a server crash. > > Last Fall, we made the decision to move to PHP/MySQL based on several > factors: > 1. We hate Microsoft and didn't want to use .NET. > 2. PHP has thousands of developers worldwide that can freelance or offer > free code. > 3. We wanted the reliability of disk-based databases. > 4. There are countless books, websites, blogs, and usergroups dedicated to > PHP. > 5. Smith Micro completely dropped the ball with WebDNA with their silence > and lack of support. This was the straw that broke the camels back. > > I have built some extremely feature-rich and complex applications with > WebDNA, and I haven't seen any other server-side language that can compete > with it's simplicity. With all this being said, I have no regrets in moving > to PHP/MySQL. For us, it's been a natural progression. The main-stream > nature of PHP has been very beneficial when learning. And I don't fault your reasoning one bit for the move. I *am* somewhat familiar with much of your story :-) ... as I've been on many of the lists you are on for quite some time. And to be clear, I'm glad you didn't take my comments as an attack of any kind because they were (of course) not. Your story is yet another good example of the apparent tragedy of WebDNA's demise (as it sure seems). My point was simply, you are now having to go down a road I'm all too familiar with.. which is busy work.. doing patches, configurations, etc.. etc.. all this stuff which is taking time/resources away from making beautiful, feature rich, websites (though I'm sure you do that as well). Clint, what "additional add-on" software are you specifically talking about which aided in your decision to switch? Also, I haven't experienced the truncating you're talking about... is this in the archives?? or was it ever a documented bug that has or needs to be fixed? For your number 3, "disk-based" databases... WebDNA can be (and is) "disk-based" as well. I do know the integrity differences between SQL and Tab-Deliminated... and that is probably more what you are referring to... but then again, WebDNA can interact with MySQL right? So, I guess I would take issue with some of your reasoning, but in the end, I can't fault your move one bit. The SMSI thing is a big enough reason by itself. Donovan -- =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o DONOVAN D. BROOKE EUCA Design Center <- Web Development (specializing in eCommerce),-> <- Desktop Publishing, Print Consulting, Labels -> <-Glass Products, off-hand Classes/studio rental-> PH:> (608) 835-2476 | Forum:> http://egg.bz/forum/ Web Sites:> http://www.euca.us & http://www.egg.bz =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Web Archive of this list is at: http://webdna.smithmicro.com/
Donovan Brooke
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