My app is brilliant,My app is pure.I saw it running once.Of that I’m sure….
It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.It’s beautiful, it’s true.I saw my app, in my own mind’s eye,And I don’t know what to do,’Cause I can’t make it come true.
Saturday, 30th April, 2006
The memory banks are fading fast, so I’m trying to get this done asap.
Saturday morning began at the crazy hour of 7.30am. Well, that’s not including breakfast, which one must do.
Building a web interface — using NetTalk 4 (Bruce Johnson)
It must have been the sleep in my eyes, the lack of caffiene or something, because I can’t remember a great deal about this talk. That’s not to say it wasn’t up to the great standards Capesoft set. It was.
I know the other guys (the Krew) came away with a far greater excitement for NetTalk4 than I could drum up in them. I’ve been working with NT4 (nice shortening) for a while now, since it was released I guess. It’s a very very exciting product.
Now. Before the conference we talked about how annoying it would be to have people coming up to you with their notebooks asking questions about your third-party products. I was determined not to be one of those guys. But then, after a few discussions with the Capesoft guys, I began to realise that sometimes that’s just not true. They don’t find it annoying. They find it quite okay.
So I flip-flopped ( .. ) and took some code to them. Bruce spotted the problem in about, hmmm … 0.05 seconds. It was good.
I suspect due to my inability to remember much that I could have quite easily been participating in the discussion at the NT4 seminar, but have no recollection of it. Apologies to one and all.
Debugging (Russ Eggen)
Russ then took us (for a couple of sessions) through using the Debugger. It was a very interesting time. I’ve never used the Debugger, full stop. And it really opened my eyes to just how powerful the thing is. Very nice.
Russ was able to work us through the UI interface, the 4 windows, how to navigate around them. The little buttons along the bottom of the first window. Then how to run through a piece of broken-ish code.
Once again, in true form, my notes are sparse. I wasn’t really thinking "I need to be in investigatory journalist mode" throughout most of the conference. Next time for sure.
The Debugger sessions were good. The biggest thing I got out of them was just the fact that it existed and served a very important purpose, one that should definately be integrated into my methods of development. There is no better kudo than that for a development conference :).
XML in Clarion 6 (Jono Woodhouse)
Jono then took us through XML in Clarion 6.
He gave us the run-down on just what XML is. It’s benefits, and when it’s best to use it. We’ve gone through these questions a year ago now, so it was interesting listening, gleaning new bits of info. Capesoft X-Files looks pretty cool. Simple, does the job.
I’d like to know how it measures up against iQXML, which in my understanding is the other major XML tool out there used by Clarion people. Well, at least in the small circle I congregate with :).
Installations and Updates (Geoff Spillane)
I would have liked more of a broad overview of SetupBuilder. It looks like an awesome product, and we were interested in seeing how it worked.
What I gleaned was that there is quite a bit of power under the hood of SetupBuilder.
Nonetheless, next time, I’d like for us to be given a "whirlwind tour", if that makes sense. It’s an hour to wow us with what this thing does.
Geoff did a pretty great job It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of people.
—-
Now comes an apparent memory free zone.
I can’t comment on the next few hours, suffice to say our brains were fried and we went out to enjoy the wonderful sights and sounds and moofies of Geelong), until we arrived back into the sidedoor of Andy K’s seminars on his stuff. And I’m glad we did make it in there, even if it was just for the last twenty minutes. Because Andy’s stuff is value.
Wizards (Andy K)
Andy’s stuff is just gas. It’s one of those products, like many of the Capesoft tools, that for a minimum effort will bring maximum joy to the user. You can put the Wizards in, and give the user a massive jump in ability to control what they see on the screen. No longer will you have to devise complex ways of letting different users see different things, or based on hidden tabs guided by complex logic. Andy’s stuff will let them decide. And if I know my Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, that’s pretty nifty.
Kudo’s to Andy. It was a pretty big call i imagine travelling all the way over here, but from our point of view, it was a great call. Thanks Andy!
—-
After this the night passed away quite well. Dinner was served, eaten, and the Fun Night was begun. Alas, I missed out on being on the winning table (apparently Brett created a DNA string before anyone else had taken the stuff out of the wrapping. Bruce Johnson graciously agreed to be interviewed by myself.
The interview is coming shortly. Hopefully I’ll get it done tonight.
Day Three needs to be done too. The most copious of notes were taken during Russ’s Clarion 7 peek, so expect something more substantial than the previous waffle, this post inlcuded.
Till Then,