On Jul 5, 2005, at 12:39 PM, Blake wrote:
In just about any professional desktop development tool today, the process of displaying DB data in form or grid format is nigh automatic. I can do it without a line of code, and I can do it even if I've never seen the tool in my life.
And then what? I'm not challenging your statement, I'm just curious: say you use one of these tools to display a grid of DB data without a line of code. What's the process to then have a finished application? Do you have to write some code at some point? How far towards your final goal does that code-less grid take you, and how far do you have to then go with code?
In my personal experience, the tools that work best are those that either let you go all the way to where you're trying to get to without *ever* writing code (obviously this only works within a restricted domain, but it's great when it does), or those that acknowledge that you're going to have to write code at some point and so focus on making that as easy and productive as possible. Whether or not I have to write "a line of code" to achieve the first 5% of my goal tends to be vastly overshadowed by whether I have to write 1000 or 10000 or 100000 lines to accomplish the other 95%. I may have more to show in VB than Squeak after an hour, but if it's a month long project I know which one I'd want to use.
It does make for nice demos, though.
At any rate, you're certainly right that Squeak is not a "professional desktop development tool". If you're looking for one of those (and, I gather, on the Windows platform), try Dolphin.
Avi