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A few years ago we tried to use their Dashboard Designer. What a pita to work with! About the time we got it working, we found out that they were abandoning the html5 export option leaving only flash as the only available option. The program was a resource hog that I loathed to start as it would take minutes to load. That program didn't make the cut on my newer rig or laptop.
At least you're finding documentation. I've always found SAP to be horrible at documentation. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: The program was a resource hog that I loathed to start as it would take minutes to load. That program didn't make the cut on my newer rig or laptop.
Our dev environment is hosted on a beefy AWS instance... with only two users. SAP is still slow.
kmoorevs wrote: At least you're finding documentation. I've always found SAP to be horrible at documentation.
You are correct sir, and having table names like QQE@#22 and no foreign keys make things so much more fun to figure out.
Jeremy Falcon
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I think you'll find it is an app built by a semi competent developer in the 80s. Instead of scrapping it in the 90s and rewrite they have bolted more crap on top of existing crap. So you are wading through a pile if steaming crap.
There are a number of these "enterprise" applications that really need to be scrapped for something that is better written. The problem is the sheer amount of time and money invested in these dogs as organisations customise the app to get around limitations and cater for their specific requirements.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I think you pretty much summed it up, and I'm sure it'll continue for a while longer no less.
Jeremy Falcon
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Well, why don't we do it?
There are certainly enough of us who can code, and enough with business knowledge/requirements.
It's actually a project that's big enough for CP to handle. There aren't many that big.
It would certainly be an opportunity to put feathers in a large number of caps.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Twould be a serious commitment of time and effort.
The mind boggles at the discussions around the requirements, I think you would get some sort of spec out in about 5 years, if ever.
I doubt you could even get an agreement on the platform(s) to be supported.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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CP/M, of course!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Like most developers / programmers /(insert term du Jour here) your criticism/suggestion overlooks the key reason businesses continue using SAP and others like it. that is the Training and implementation costs involved with a new system. The larger the organization, the larger the cost is. One of the major reasons Windows8 failed was this exact fact.
If you could keep the user interface the same and just clean up the back end, you would have a reasonable competitor. (No chance without a major lawsuit from SAP!)
Ignoring that who would buy it and how would you sell it?
The other reason would be who gets the money from the sales of the new product if there are any....
I have a package for small business and clients that have been with me since 1984. Over the years, the code has been refactored repeatedly, the user interface has bee virtually untouched.
Finally, you may think that you can build a better mousetrap (like the creators of all the new languages  ), but I have my doubts. However solve the issues I bring up and I'm "in".
A giraffe is a horse designed by a committee....
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So true. I have witnessed, at close quarters, vastly superior software products completely failing to knock long established, industry standard piles of poo off their perches. Lots of people have lost lots of money trying.
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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There are already a number of open source apps that could replace SAP. I would suggest finding your favorite and contributing.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: From this one table alone
That's because the backend was (or still is) implemented in COBOL! 
(Actually, it's probably true.  )
Marc
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Oh, you mean CBL1? 
Jeremy Falcon
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Just be happy. The place I worked last year was still using BPCS. Had to interface some data with it, and the field names you just showed were MODELS OF CLARITY in comparison to those in that heap of crap! FP. RBAS. And numerous others my brain purged in order to keep my sanity!
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Ok, fair enough. Thanks for making me feel better.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: if they can sell this, then in tech you apparently can pretty much shrink wrap and sell a turd to people who don't know any better
That appears to be the only de facto standard that really exists. I have seen enough money pits which better had been thrown away and rewritten 20 years ago, but everyone involved (including the customers) fear to lose all the time and money they put into them and bravely soldier on.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: using text fields for boolean logic
To be fair, a boolean isn't part of the ISO specification (Oracle, for example, doesn't have a boolean data type). So you either use a numeric type and restrict it to 0 and 1 or you use a text type and restrict it to Y and N. I've seen the Y/N a lot (although I don't agree with it). At least be glad they documented it properly!
What's more important, the average user will never see any of this.
What matters to them is that it works and gives them the functionality they need and somehow it does.
They don't care about your petty programmer problems like casting Y/N to booleans and keeping your data consistent without foreign keys.
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Real programmers don't need foreign keys!
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Real programmers also do their code tests in production.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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Sander Rossel wrote: So you either use a numeric type and restrict it to 0 and 1 or you use a text type and restrict it to Y and N. I've seen the Y/N a lot (although I don't agree with it). At least be glad they documented it properly!
That are almost equivalent options, as you can do it with a simple binary AND. It helps reportization, especially if the clients are dumb (as with only enough processor to keep a connection to a main server), which was the standard topology at the times. then topology changed, but you must maintain compatibility with older databases. What do you do, change the background and add a layer of compatibility or realyze that Y/N are two bytes as much as 1/0?
In industial automation BTW the common patterns are 0xC0 and 0xC1 to encode 0 and 1.
CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"Go ahead, make my day"
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Sander Rossel wrote: What's more important, the average user will never see any of this.
Exactly! That's why SAP makes so much money.
SAP is a well known ERP system. So when big companies setup ERP system they can only think of SAP.
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Sander Rossel wrote: Oracle, for example, doesn't have a boolean data type
To be fair, Oracle is one of the best sources of negative examples in the industry.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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And, like SAP, they make shitloads of money.
Larry Ellison is one of the top eight richest people in the world (who, together, have more money than half of the worlds population together).
Step 1. Do a sh*t job.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit.
We can learn from these guys...
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These people demonstrate nothing but greed and laziness, which are two things that everyone learns as a toddler.
What we need is to stop rewarding people for providing garbage, but then where would the Kardashian's be?
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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No one ever got rich by being lazy.
They may be greedy (although Bill Gates is the biggest giver to charity ever), but they are not lazy.
Not to mention they took risks.
I also wouldn't go so far as to call their products garbage.
If they were in it just for the money they would never get this far.
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Long statement about Google, Mary Ann Davidson, and the pain of working with Oracle products.
Realized that I don't care, not worth kvetching over.
Oracle security chief to customers: Stop checking our code for vulnerabilities [Updated] | Ars Technica is worth the read for a laugh, if you're not familiar.
I do need to point out that while no one has ever gotten rich by being lazy, many people have gotten rich in spite of being lazy.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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