Getting started quickly - Foundation Classes / Ready frameworks

What I miss is - there was no way in which I, a learner,0
can quickly get a small app running.
Once I get to that stage I could have built up

In other environments / products there are Foundation
Classes, Ready frameworks, Tutorials (serious ones)
which let you get a kick start. (Thats how we got started
on Powerbuilder 9 years ago, The Foundation classes
and tutorials were and still are wonderful)

Is there any way I can get a small Business Application
running very fast. It really does not require much
- A template for a master entry screen
- A template for a master detail screen
- A template for Tab sheet entry
- A template for developing & viewing reports
--All above against an RDBMS
- and A good tutorial / cook book approach for the above

Once so far the rest can be overcome and we can
really think of adopting this platform

Any suggestions or anything I have missed

Regards
Sanjay Minni










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Sanjay,

> What I miss is - there was no way in which I, a learner,0
> can quickly get a small app running.
> Once I get to that stage I could have built up

Some of what you want indeed exists, some might not.  However, I am
suspicious that much of it is not necessary; understanding the the
latter point is an integral part of learning Smalltalk.


> In other environments / products there are Foundation
> Classes,

With tongue only partly in cheek, I submit to you that "foundation
classes" is a name that make sense where objects are an afterthought -
C++ etc. come to mind.  Elevating some Smalltalk classes to the level of
"foundation classes" would slight the other thousands of ready-to-use
classes that are part of the system as delivered.


 > Ready frameworks,

Got 'em.  Lots of 'em, both in the base system, and as third party (free
and commercial) products.


 > Tutorials (serious ones)

Ouch.  Well, sorta.  The tutorials are serious, though not necessarily
voluminous.  However, much of learning Smalltalk is learning how to find
what you need in the image, after which, the system itself becomes the
best tutorial/reference you can want.  Beyond that, look for Ian
Bartholomew's archive of the this newsgroup (and forums before it), and
DSDN to search it.



> Is there any way I can get a small Business Application
> running very fast. It really does not require much
> - A template for a master entry screen
> - A template for a master detail screen
> - A template for Tab sheet entry

Start learning MVP, and suddenly all of this becomes easy.  Re
"templates", it doesn't quite work that way, however, as you work, you
will start to discover that you can copy and paste from previous
efforts.  I maintain a _really_ ugly (read big) user interface that
motivated (ok, terrified<g>) me into building a view generating system.
  No disrespect intended, I doubt you are ready for it yet, but after
learning your way around a Smalltalk image, you would be able to use it
to advantage.


> - A template for developing & viewing reports

This is probably the weakest area.  However, who uses the reports?  Much
of what one would normally do with external tools can be accomplished
very easily within the Smalltalk image - once you learn how to use it.

When you indeed want to create stand-alone reports, HTML and a web
browser (embedded or otherwise) works very nicely.


> --All above against an RDBMS

Again, no disrespect intended: is that a requirement, or simply the only
way you know to accomplish the objective?  I have multiple systems that
use an RDBMS (usually because I want the indexing), and other systems
that do not.  The latter tend to be more powerful, and vastly easier to
modify.



> - and A good tutorial / cook book approach for the above

See "Dolphin Smalltalk Companion" by Ted Bracht, available on Amazon.  I
will leave it to you to decide whether it covers all of the above, or
simply enough to justify your purchase.



> Once so far the rest can be overcome and we can
> really think of adopting this platform

I urge you to try it regardless of whether it appears to meet all of
your goals.  IMHO, much of the complexity of mainstream software comes
from people doing what they believe is necessary.  Smalltalk helps you
crash through many barriers with an ease that must be experienced to be
believed.  Creating non-trival software will still be a substantial
effort, but you will find that you will succeed far more often than you
did (I use past tense because there is no going back<g>[*]) with other
tools.


> Any suggestions or anything I have missed

Try Dolphin.  I assure you, you don't know what you are missing :)


Have a good one,

Bill




[*] Some things like numerical analysis code is better packaged in
C/C++/etc. DLLs and called from Smalltalk.  That's another conversation.
  For now, I'll stop at saying that there are some very nice ways to do
the grunt work in C++ and the "thinking" in Smalltalk.

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Lets put it this way
- Please point me to an example of
      - a master entry screen  }   against an RDBMS
      - a master detail screen }
      - a Tab sheet entry        }
even the first two and I will dive in, period.

thereafter...

>>Reports
> This is probably the weakest area.  However, who uses the reports?
> When you indeed want to create stand-alone reports, HTML and a web
> browser (embedded or otherwise) works very nicely.

unfortunately a lot in large Business Environments here want voluminous
printed stuff Some of the Managerial, Audit & Statutory bodies here
are really very Paper Mill friendly

> > --All above against an RDBMS
>  I have multiple systems that use an RDBMS and other systems
> that do not.  The latter tend to be more powerful, and vastly easier to
> modify.

Unfortunately all our data so far exists on RDBMS platforms
Typically a few hundred tables with some spanning 1 million or so rows
Data tends to multiply over the years

> > - and A good tutorial / cook book approach for the above
> See "Dolphin Smalltalk Companion" by Ted Bracht, available on Amazon.

Sadly I would have to pay USD10 for shipping to India which is holding me
back

> Try Dolphin.  I assure you, you don't know what you are missing :)

I have recd a lot of assistance, pushing in the past from this newsgroup
and thats why I am still at it and hopefully will manage someday
I invested in DolphinProf4 and will proceed to 6 (when av.) if even see a
reflection
of a  light

Regards
Sanjay



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On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:16:16 +0530,
Sanjay Minni <[hidden email]> wrote:

>>>Reports
>> This is probably the weakest area.  However, who uses the reports?
>> When you indeed want to create stand-alone reports, HTML and a web
>> browser (embedded or otherwise) works very nicely.
>
> unfortunately a lot in large Business Environments here want voluminous
> printed stuff Some of the Managerial, Audit & Statutory bodies here
> are really very Paper Mill friendly

XHMTL + CSS + power to force use of a single compliant browser

>
>> > - and A good tutorial / cook book approach for the above
>> See "Dolphin Smalltalk Companion" by Ted Bracht, available on Amazon.
>
> Sadly I would have to pay USD10 for shipping to India which is holding me
> back

How much is that compared
a) to the price of the book?
b) to your hourly rates?

I stopped noticing shipping as an extra cost, as if it were avoidable.
When I *need* a book, I take a look at the total cost (and delivery
time) and ask myself "yes or no?". Makes life easier.

Have a nice week,
s.

Hi Sanjay,

I was a bit intrigued by this and although I haven't worked with a
relational database in years and not at all in Dolphin, I thought I'd take a
few minutes (ok, an hour or so).  First I went to
http://www.object-arts.com/Lib/EducationCentre4/htm/databaseconnectivity.htm
which I found to be a good tutorial for basic database connectivity and
querying.  Then I created a master/detail (actually, master/detail/detail)
shell, using ListPresenters and ListViews, querying against the NorthWind
database.

A picture and pac file of this mini-app are at
http://www.mindspring.com/~lsumberg/Dolphin/NorthWindDBSample/.  Note that
the app uses ListViews so it's read-only.  The top listview shows customers.
Choose a customer and orders are shown in the lower left listview.  Choose
an order and the products in that order are shown in the lower right.

It's simple and it's crude - my sql skills are pretty rusty and I'm sure a
join could've been used in the final query - but it does work (for what it's
intended to do).  Having said all that, I realize that this might not be
what you're looking for at all.  It's not a template or a wizard, it's not a
data entry form (though for data entry I'd probably look at the
EditableListView components), and it probably doesn't scale upwards to the
numbers that you've mentioned.  Frankly, what you described sounds like a
data warehouse issue where I'd think that PowerBuilder, which you've used
for so long, should give good results - i.e., the requirements you've
brought up have to do with GUI and RDBMS stuff, not modeling (I mean
business modeling, not data modeling), where Smalltalk would be most useful.

That's my 2 cents.  I actually enjoyed this little diversion :)

-- Louis

Sanjay,

> Lets put it this way
> - Please point me to an example of
>       - a master entry screen  }   against an RDBMS
>       - a master detail screen }
>       - a Tab sheet entry        }
> even the first two and I will dive in, period.

Go to http://www.solutionsoft.co.uk/

This company markets a OO to RDB mapping product for Dolphin called
ReStore. This comes with a sample application which, although simple,
should illustrate at least some of what you want. Also, because it uses
the OOD to RDB mapping layer it is actually fairly straightforward to
view the RDB in a natural object form from within Dolphin.

Anyway, you may like to take a look at ReStore (I believe there is a
free trial) or you could do a Google Groups search for ReStore and
Dolphin to see what other users think of the product:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=reStore+Dolphin&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2c
off=1&selm=a7tpbf%24o3e9b%241%40ID-50880.news.dfncis.de&rnum=2

Best regards


Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
www.object-arts.com