Base And Gnucash

[blfs at comcast.net]

Huh????? What?????? 


It is inappropriate for GNUcash to interact with OpenOffice? 


The debate between canned accounting systems and open systems is well known. 


Is GNUcash designed to be a canned system? What would be the purpose for open source software to 
be a black box? 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Derek Atkins" <warlord at MIT.EDU> 
To: "John Ralls" <jralls at ceridwen.us> 
Cc: blfs at comcast.net, "gnucash-devel at gnucash.org devel" <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> 
Sent: Thursday, May 2, 2013 10:20:17 AM 
Subject: Re: Base And Gnucash 

John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> writes: 

> On May 1, 2013, at 8:32 PM, blfs at comcast.net wrote: 
> 
> The problem with Gnucash is that it is hard or perhaps practically 
> impossible to modify unless perhaps one is 
> very familiar with the program. THis is at least how it used to be. 
> 
> That hasn't changed. It's also usually true of all complex programs, and 
> Gnucash is complex, perhaps overly so. 

I think it depends on what exactly you want/need to change.. Some 
things are easier than others. However I would point out that creating 
something in ANY language as complex as GnuCash would be just as hard to 
make changes if you're not familiar with it! The language you use 
doesn't change that fact. 

> This makes it practically impossible to switch from our system to GNUcash. 
> IT was some time ago that I tried to work with this 
> program, but just importing my data was not possible or too difficult. 

Not at all. GnuCash has lots of decent importers for various data 
formats, including QIF, OFX/QFX, HBCI, MT940, and CSV. Granted, if you 
cannot create data in those formats then sure, you'll have trouble 
importing into GnuCash. 

> The advantages of building a financial program based on Base are obvious. 

No, they are not. 

> The import issue for example is already solved. 

No, it is not. You would still need to write parsers for QIF, OFX, 
HBCI, MT940, etc. Sure, CSV is probably going to be easy for you, but 
none of the others are. 

Also, keep in mind that initial import is a one-time operation. It's 
everything else that happens over and over and over. You're prematurely 
optimizing for the wrong thing here. 

> Also, it would not be all that difficult to write it. Users could much 
> more easily modify the program and on and on and on. I am not 
> understanding 
> why there is not such a project. Or is there? 
> 
> Whether or not such a project exists or whether or not it would be easy to 
> write has nothing to do with Gnucash, and further discussion on this mailing 
> list is inappropriate. 

And you're welcome to go ahead and write it. GnuCash has something on 
the order of 50-100 man-years of effort behind it. Good luck 
replicating, but discussion here is inappropriate. GnuCash isn't going 
to change to your whim, but patches for improvement are always welcome. 

Thanks, 

> Regards, 
> John Ralls 

-derek 

-- 
Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory 
Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) 
URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH 
warlord at MIT.EDU PGP key available