A milestone indeed

This is the new Dynamics forum - don't forget that!

Oh man! It's now pistols and swords at dawn.

Be careful! Did you ever use the sword against a leftie?

Well, I suppose I should stop waiting for something meaningful to say and just join in .... 2,000 it is.

And a milestone reached for the indefatigable Dr Mercer-Hursh .

Congratulations, and thank you for all the meaningful, well-thought out and reasoned comments. Even though I don't agree with all of them

Seriously, it takes devotion, dedication and a certain amount of "caring" to have reached 2000 posts.

Seriously, it takes devotion, dedication and a certain amount of "caring" to have reached 2000 posts.

Or, just a big mouth ... but I like to think I have something to say from time to time. Unfortunately, there's no rating system for making interesting observations or asking interesting questions.

And, I would be very surprised if anyone agreed with me all the time. That would suggest a lack of thinking on someone's part since perspective, orientation, background, context, experience, etc. are likely to give one a different spin, even if one was actually dealing with the same facts, as one often isn't.

As for the forum, I wonder if PSC would consider making this forum publicly visible after FCS. It seems to me that there is a lot of experience that has been recorded here. To be sure, there is some of it that is dated because it relates to bugs that have been or will be fixed, but the vast majority of posts are about how to, grappling with concepts, experience with different controls, etc. that would help others get a good head start after FCS.

Of course, they would have a lot of catching up to do!

As for the forum, I wonder if PSC would consider

making this forum publicly visible after FCS. It

seems to me that there is a lot of experience that

has been recorded here. To be sure, there is some of

it that is dated because it relates to bugs that have

been or will be fixed, but the vast majority of posts

are about how to, grappling with concepts, experience

with different controls, etc. that would help others

get a good head start after FCS.

Of course, they would have a lot of catching up to do!

I would consider that a good idea.

+1

BTW Mike, were you aware that you were the second highest lifetime contributor? This beta forum has pushed you rapidly past Tim Kuehn, who used to have that position.

Math:Add(total, 1)

I've done what was required to get the 10.2A that pretty much fulfills my requirements.

And, to make it all the more amazing, the Dynamics forum took 83 months to accumulate its total and this forum has yet to make 3 months.

to put it into another perspective, the 10.1C beta forum had 86 posts ...

Some of us have already been busy testing 10.2A during the 10.1C beta program. So you might want to add the 10.2A PoC and TP forum posts to your beta equasion.

So we need to add at least another 500+ to the 10.2a beta count

I wonder if all this means that 10.2 will be a commercial hit as well.

Will it put Progress back on the shortlists?

Will it stop customers from leaving?

Will it put the ABL back in business?

Julian has already started posting on the CQC forum as well...

I wouldn't look for 10.2A to have a profound, short term effect on PSC's commercial prospects. It will create some buzz, to be sure, but only within the Progress community. To the rest of the world, they can already create this sort of UI using .NET, so they are highly unlikely to be interested in doing it in ABL. To certain partners, it may be significant if they have an existing ABL GUI which is rather tired and this is being a sales issue, but recognize that if they are already GUI, it is not likely to be a major sales point compared to relative functionality. They might get a few more wows in the first 5 minutes, but much of that will be forgotten by any serious buyer long before a purchase because the functionality fit will be more important. And, of course, this also implies that it is not a partner who wants to move to UI/BL separation since that would tend to go along with .NET, Java, or browser client, not an ABL client. Similarly, there may be end-user customers who will get a shot in the arm of fresh enthusiasm, but it isn't going to rescue someone who has been jerked around with a platform change fee or whatever so that they are anxious to move away from Progress.

Bottom line, developers will have some fun, sales people might get energized, some prospects might get some more up front enthusiasm, some useful new capabilities might get added, some users are going to be happier, but it isn't going to double the stock price.

So we need to add at least another 500+ to the 10.2a beta count

Only if PSDN merges the threads ... but we seem likely to get over 2K just for traffic between now and FCS.

Or, just a big mouth ... but I like to think I have

something to say from time to time. Unfortunately,

there's no rating system for making interesting

observations or asking interesting questions.

The best peer-review/rating website I've seen is a relatively new one: stackoverflow.com . It's a generic programming questions site, and has a number of mechanisms to get the cream to rise to the top (and to prevent me-too-ism and first-post and a number of other bad Slashdot-like behaviour), which make it really useful.

It's great software, but I don't believe it lends itself well to discussions of the sort frequently undertaken here (including this one :).

-- peter