Convention04?
Zdenek Cerveny
Are there any results from the Convention04_Paradox or al lest the
downloaded texts of contributions?
Thanks for answer.
Egbert Babst
Zdenek,
yes there are some important results. See:
pnews.thedbcommunity.com -> pnew.announcements
You'll find a yet incomplete link list at the end of this posting.
I copy a survey here:
Day 1
>>> (made at 10/30)
Hi all, this is not the full report, only some first information.
- we have been more than expected people (more than 40)
- the structure was: presentation, split into smaller, language orientated
groups, coming back together and ask question arisen in the
group-discussions.
- here my introduction:
http://fp.babstsoft.com/Paradox/Convention04/Docs/Die_Zukunft_von_Paradox_E.ppt
- we did then decide the priority of the announced contributions. Each
visitor could vote the four most interesting objectives and so we got a
priority list, which was then followed.
- Frank Fischer showed the MS vision concerning Visual Studio and .NET
First impression:
- .NET seems not to be an alternative to Paradox/OPAL because of some
tendencies, most impressive was to hide code-details for the developer so he
"only" has to program be mouse-clicks. Consequence: a loss of control over
the code.
- FoxPro would either be an alternative (reasons later)
- .NET would be put (coming Longhorn) "under the cover"
- Frank did the presentation very well, asked a lot of questions but
seems to know very, very few about Paradox.
- Otto Fischer continued with some information about his career from
Fortran, Cobol .... via Paradox (author of a book concerning P 4.5) and off
Paradox. His speech was - first impression - more a suggestion to leave
Paradox.
- Vladimir Menkin showed how easy it can be to program some
Paradox-extensions (sending, getting e-mails and splitting automatically the
several modules of an e-mail (header, body etc), send ping, get
who-is-information with the Corel web-server and a lot more (live connected
to the CNN website e.g.). Including the right OCX in the code and the number
of lines to extend the functionality of Paradox is very small, impressive!
That was encouraging to cope with the reality of Paradox and to face the
future.
- Michel Claveau (translated by Frédéric Marand) showed how to use Unicode
via his Paradox-extension "Ponx" (using Paradox, Python and OLE-automation,
showed code and examples). Where Paradox crashes or creates error messages
if there are Unicode characters in strings, Ponx got it to work.
- Graeme Smith from UK (who is loving Paradox from the beginning in 1984 but
also a business-expert *he rejected this term in a later post*) told us how
he could influence Corel then (years
agoooo) to put new functionality into the next version. Then he invited (and
engaged) some people to make a little game and his presentation was
involving the audience. So he got out that we had a lot of programmers
using client-server apps, with perhaps some tenthousands of sold apps but a
total profit what was ridiculous few and even more ridiculous counting the
profit Corel may have had from this (giving e.g. Runtime for free). We
pondered how Corel could get the revenue to do more for Paradox in the
future, and that would be necessary as Corel stated. Then he invited us in 3
groups to invent a list of only 5 new function to ask Corel to develop (to
let us ponder about creativity in this sector. He put a lot of other
questions which you will read when I publish here in the next time a link
collection for download of the contributions.
- Hans Shoutsen gave us a lot of good reasons for using decentralized small
databases and the audience followed with great interest. You'll get the
presentation too for download
- Mike Robinson (Sundial Services) made a systematic survey what to do to
avoid corrupt Paradox-tables (he said to me: some kind of cooking book) and
all this was also something everybody could realize immediately (we here
know the things like local share on, oplocks out and so on). All in all he
was giving hints what to do to avoid the necessity for buying chimneySweep
(I told him kidding).
Tomorrow we'll continue with some presentations and some ad hoc found
workgroups. Once participant told in a small talk about a simple possibility
to get Paradox independent from MS changes (using PdoxForms) and earning
money each month with his apps sold. Perhaps he will tell more tomorrow.
Thies Grimm said, the visit of a (now I can say it) IBM guy was planned to
few time before the convention to get it to work. But the story is not yet
at its end.
No new surprises from Corel, but Jacques who got a telephone call hat not
yet presented his topic about a first outline of some kind of business plan.
Interesting, this was not an assembly of "old farts only". We had a good
mixture of well motivated youngsters with high qualification and, yes, some
"old farts" and "Paradox-geeks" like me and others and a lot between. The
level of most of participants seems to be pretty high.
OK, so far, only first impressions, not well balanced because fresh by
heart.
Filmed and I'll make some CDs, but this time each presentation on a single
CD (not DVD), so everybody can order only the needed ones for the dispenses
of doing the same: Copying and then sending the copy to interested others.
We'll make a list, who has what, so every body can ask for. and continue the
free chain.
Egbert, 23:35 in Germany
<<<
Day 2:
>>> (made at 10/31)
OK, here is the second part, also very spontaneous.
- We started with the presentation of Frédéric Marand who showed us the
advantages to use 2 RAD-tools: Paradox *and* Delphi. Delphi could help to
compensate some weak parts of Paradox, which he considered all in all as
possibly the best tool for extremely Rapid Application Development.
- Thies Grimm explained with a concrete code example how to import Outlook
contact data into Paradox tables (and vice versa). All this, using
OLEautomation seemed to be very simple, if, yes if you know how to start.
And this was what Thies helped us to know. Only problem (but he gave a
solution): How to detect the field-types of Outlook, because he could not
find any official hint or documentation concerning this topic.
After this (and the short breaks we always did to talk without stress with
each other and the speaker in the lobby) we split the audience into 3
groups:
(1) The largest group discussed the topic: Future of Paradox, wrapped around
the presentation of Jacques (he spoke French but his son translated it into
fine English).
Jacque showed the latest estimations about sold numbers of Paradox (in
France), user numbers worldwide (also estimations) and what C orel could
have earned (too less, indeed). Then he offered his ideas which packets
Corel should offer (Basic, professional, developer) and what Corel should
demand for it.
Uwe Lauth did a short summery later (details will be offered for download):
If Corel would take something about 1000 EUR for the professional version
(and more for the developers version), Corel could get such revenues to be
able to pay four developers. And then....
(2) In the second group Vladimir showed details about PdoxForms, examples
and also some code, because he had guy around being interested in such and
more details.
(3) In this group happened the same except that here Frédéric showed and
discussed details for using Delphi as Paradox extension with Add-In Forms
- Uwe Lauth showed us the way the company he's working in uses Paradox for a
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Paradox is there only an
exchangeable member in a chain from non-Paradox database via BDE/Paradox and
ODBC. The data are used local and copied from the (non-Paradox) server. Each
user works with his own local set of data, of course changes were
synchronized with the original main-database. Another interesting tool was
able to change all text-properties in a set of forms with the purpose to
localize labels and so on to each wished language.
- Mike Irwin has prepared his presentation with the spoken text added to the
slides and has send it to me via FTP-download. Then we arranged a
messenger-video-talk, so he could follow his presentation (which was steered
by Hans). After the presentation we has a short talk to him (beamed at the
screen of 1x1.5m). Nice event: He saw his picture live from the USA here how
it appeared here in Germany.
- Côme finally showed that Paradox indeed is a good backend for mySQL. But
if you use XP it's necessary to stay with SP1 because of the issue with
external aliases. He's hoping for a fix. A demand concerning this was sent
(before the convention started) to Corel. He showed a lot of details and the
convention could have be continued for some more hours.
- But we needed the time to start the future of Paradox discussion. This
group (is still now 22:49 pm in Germany) sitting together,
OK, with some good beer and wine. The conclusions:
1) Foundation of an International Paradox Association (there was an European
model long time before)
2) Members must be companies, no private persons (to demonstrate more power
when negotiating)
3) The board consists of 5-7 members (5 nominated for sure) from each
country (also USA: Nancy Robinson, Sundial Service). 1 probably me (the
German member is not me, but probably I'll represent Spain). The other might
be Graeme from UK, but we have to ask him of course, because he had to leave
yesterday.
Purpose/objectives of this group is first to create the rules, get some
money together and negotiate then with companies, of course also with Corel
and do the necessary steps to help Paradox to survive. Also the Association
has to find a lot of members, putting ideas together and build a fine
international network.
Well so far - I had to do a lot of organizational work (get all the
equipment back to my office and so on), now I want to meet this new group.
You'll read more soon and also see our fine pictures made of each of us
specially for the German and American Intelligence Services <g>.
Till soon
Egbert, 23:06 in Germany
<<<
in Addition:
>>>
I've forgotten to mention a very fast and IMO too short presentation of
Michel Claveau (he fitted in a remaining space of only 10 minutes). What he
was showing is worth a lot of more attention.
- Michel showed how it is possible to work with a Paradox form wrapped into
a HTML-application (.HTA) which worked with a table via mySQL. The
..HTA-form could:
(1) use all possibilities of DHTML via a Paradox form
(2) run PHP-scripts within Paradox
(3) use Java-script or .NET in a Paradox form.
If you like to see examples and if you can translate the French comments,
here is a link to this presentation:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mclaveau/cp2004/htgui.htm
Egbert. 11:20 in Germany
P.S. Michel, I think it's worth to translate your work into English. We
should talk beside this ng how I can help you. I would prefer to meet you
the next time I'm going to Mallorca (December-> New Year). Wouldn't it be
nice to come over there to stay few days at our finca and you can explain me
a lot more about and I'll help you to make it available in the
English-speaking world? Details can be accorded privately.
[Michel, je pense qu'il vaut pour traduire ton travail dans anglais. Nous
devrions parler à côté de ce ng comme je peux t'aider. Je préférais te
rencontrer la prochaine fois peut-être à Mallorca? Est-ce que ce ne serait
pas agréable de venir là-bas rester peu de jours à notre finca et tu poux
m'expliquer beaucoup plus au sujet d'et je t'aiderai pour le rendre
disponible dans le monde Anglophone? Les détails peuvent être s'accordés en
privé.]
<<<
The founding of the "International Paradox Association":
<<<
Hi all,
I'm happy to announce that the Paradox Convention 2004 resulted in more than
only an event:
The non-profit organization "International Paradox Association (IPA)" was
founded. I'll post soon our mission and how to become member. The
board-membership is restricted to companies, the regular membership is open
for everybody. We have already an address in Belgium, we'll register soon
our domain-name, register all the legal necessities and fix our first
papers. I'm responsible for PR and so I'll inform you soon, if the formal
things are ready and accepted by the board. Of course I'll present all board
members and their roles/tasks.
The International Paradox Convention 2005 will be organized by the "IPA".
Important: We want to be a help for all Paradox developers and do all
possible to represent our common interests. We'll deal with Corel but not in
an attacking but in a cooperative manner. Details will follow!
Egbert, 11:35 in Germany
<<<
We are just doing the basics, testing for brandnames and legal issues,
looking for the cheapest way to registrate the domain-names etc.
In some days (I'm the PR-man there <g>) well publish the mission statement
and the names of board members and other structural information.
So: There is a movement to support Paradox and the convention showed a lot
of important way to keep Paradox living!"
I'm just preparing a site, were the contribution can be downloaded. Some
links still exist and I give you here a preview:
For the exact title please look at the program:
http://www.babstsoft.com/Paradox/Convention04/Docs/Programm_Engl.htm
Introduction:
-------------
- English:
http://fp.babstsoft.com/Paradox/Convention04/Docs/Die_Zukunft_von_Paradox_E.ppt
- (or English pdf-file): http://www.odiel.be/mygui/convention2004.pdf
- French:
http://www.babstsoft.com/Paradox/Convention04/Docs/Die_Zukunft_von_Paradox_E.ppt
- German:
http://www.babstsoft.com/Paradox/Convention04/Docs/Die_Zukunft_von_Paradox_D.ppt
Vladimirs presentation with all example-files:
http://cust.east.ru/~menkin/pdxconv4.zip
Côme de Christen, Clairinfo:
Is Paradox a good front-end for MySql?
http://www.clairinfo.fr/fichiers/Paradox_MySql_English.pdf
Michel Claveau (Michel Claveau Informatique ):
(1) Un exemple PONX: utiliser Unicode avec Paradox. (This presentation will
be carried out in French since Michel doesn't speak any English).
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mclaveau/cp2004/unicode.htm
(2) HTGUI, un voi possible pour sortir de Paradox ?
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mclaveau/cp2004/htgui.htm
Some more
Côme de Christen:
http://www.gibbon.fr/IPA/CC_Paradox_MySql_English.pdf
Thies Grimm
http://www.gibbon.fr/IPA/TG_PdoxConventionTG.pdf
Mike Robinson (Sundial Services)
http://www.gibbon.fr/IPA/MR_sundial_presentation.pdf
Frédéric Marand
http://www.gibbon.fr/IPA/FM_Frederic.pdf
Independently I'm preparing CDs of the contributions to spread by the
snowball principle we use successfully last year.
HTH
Egbert 13:52 in Germany
"Zdenek Cerveny" <z.ce...@f16.cz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:4189da6f$1_3@cnews...
Egbert Babst
in addition,
I forgot to correct the link to my introduction in the copy.
Look at the link-list, there you'll find the correct one.
Sorry.
Egbert