chart of accounts

[Neil Williams]

On Tuesday 09 November 2004 7:45 pm, John Sowden wrote:
> Thanks for those words of encouragement.  Your position years ago is where
> I am exactly today!  The reason that I have not migrated to mysql is: in
> addition to learning sql and the mysql commands, setup etc., it seems that
> I must learn a new language, like "C" in order to write an application that
> will allow me to use the mysql database.

Not true, thankfully.

> The programs that I write for my 
> company are not data entry/report generation only.  They are accounting,
> billing, alarm processing, service call processing, etc.  These require
> programming to control the process, not just bringing raw data onto the
> screen.

This is getting miles off-topic, but take a look at one of my other projects, 
isbnsearch, it's done entirely in the http environment and includes lots of 
calculations, reformatting, data handling and data manipulation. It's a 
question of choosing dynamic pages over static. Once you realise that you 
can't link HTML to MySQL without Perl or PHP or similar, you also realise 
that these scripts can also manipulate the data in any way you need. Arrays, 
hashes, calculations, statistical analysis, graphing (with the right config), 
log, trig, data persistence outside the database, inter-server communication 
and data exchange, export, import, . . . .  

AND, it's all in an environment that every user will find familiar - their 
favourite browser.

Add in https:// if you need, add more complex routines that create tar.gz 
files for download, link to FTP, provide RSS, write out XML and other formats 
that are suitable for direct import into other applications or even PDA's.

PHP and Perl can be MADE complex, but they are also simple and easy to 
construct. One of my other sites gives help on linking PHP to MySQL 
(www.codehelp.co.uk). PHP, like other scripts, is much easier to write and 
debug because there's no compilation needed, you can see exactly what you've 
done.

One immense bonus of this route is that ALL pages can then be strict HTML 
compliance - eliminating all browser-specificity problems that bedevil the 
little that Javascript can do for your data.

There's NO excuse for dumping database data direct to HTML. The scripts that 
retrieve the data can and should do all the transformations necessary to make 
the data appear in a clear and intuitive format.

BTW. Please snip content from the replies, especially the sig lines and tail 
lines added by the list.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.codehelp.co.uk/
http://www.dclug.org.uk/
http://www.isbn.org.uk/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/

http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/attachments/20041109/3263ea00/attachment.bin