Ungrateful End-Users

Have you ever encountered this as a Developer:

Customer Request
I need a report but I want to only input a date range and then it should give me the report with a button click.

Developer Response
OK, ... he is then spending about 2 days to collect the necessary info to get the job done and spends another two days to create the report.

On Delivery:

Customer
Enters the date range and get his report - he is happy and says, job well done, I need another report, but it is urgent, I need it by tomorrow.

Developer
Sorry, it not possible by tomorrow, I need at least 4 days, your project is complex and I need to analyse data again to create the correct results.

Customer then says: Why is it difficult, it is just a date range and a button click!

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Every developer now or then had a similar conversation at least once. End-Users are ungrateful of what they see because they don't know what complex code, formulas, and thinking lays behind the one button click. For them it is just the button click.

This is what I call the "Simple is Bad Syndrome". Just read on and you will get what I mean.

Same with DBA Tools, Database Engines, and Developer Tools; the simpler the tool is the less it is appreciated by the end-user. For example, Firebird is a exceptional good designed SQL engine that outperforms many commercial databases and is very capable of Enterprise Class missions. Compared to Oracle it has only a 40MB footprint where as the smallest Oracle Express is about 1.5GB. Why is that? Both are SQL Engines, both get the job done with almost no performance differences, and firebird has even a few more features to offer.

It is very simple, Larry Ellison understands the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and that's way a certain bloated engine is designed to overcome that syndrome. (Oracle is complex and difficult to maintain, so it has to be good) An Oracle DBA is one of the highest paid positions and the reason for that is: Oracle is complex and difficult to learn. Firebird on the other side is a Zero-Administration engine, which means a Firebird DBA has less things to do.

People tend to not to appreciate simple working stuff, so if Firebird is simple to use, then it must be no good.

Very wrong, engineers all over the world try to innovate to make life's easier, so simple does not mean not good.

We have created a new SQL Engine called masSQLer, which is in fact the clone of Firebird but with Grid++ integration and with clustering support, and we benchmark it with Oracle. There is almost no difference (both engines have pro's and contra's) except masSQLer is way easier to use and maintain.

The good news is, more and more developers start to understand the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and realize that life can be easy and appreciate simple and easy to use tools.

For example, we have customers converting to XPower++ from Delphi and Visual Studio, and the most selected reasons in our surveys was, "One-Click compile feature", "It's simple to use", and "It's fast, I get more done". We hope to achieve the same with our masSQLer product.

So if you are a developer my advice to you is: Always try to explain the complexity of the tasks your need to perform (jabber your clients ears full for at least 20 min. with very technical terminology, or until he/she has a please stop expression on his/her face) and have a look at XPower++, will ya, it might save you some time :)

Take good care, its flu season...

Man o man, what a start into the new year.

First of all, thx to all supporters and fans. We really do appreciate it very much. And since now we are at the dawn of April I want to share some insight info about what we were up to the last 3 months.

I checked today our quarterly reports and was very pleased that the sales of XPower++ have picked up by 180%, and the amazing part of it is that we are not actively marketing this product yet. Pure web drop ins and mouth to mouth sales.

Our Grid++ system roll outs have 4 folded and it amazes me that businesses just now start to understand the value of a Grid Computing system. The world is clearly moving to distributed systems with App-Store functionality or better, SaaS and PaaS are now IN, everything else is OUT, at least it seems that way.

Well, actually with Cloud and Grid even the devices start to change, some may say Apple started this, some say Linux had it already for years, I say it does not matter, it is an evolution that was foreseen by many.

So, we are still working hard to get X-Mobile out, it looks good, I myself have delayed everything else to work on it, but a few items are still on the table, but good things don't happen overnight right ;)

So we are rolling pretty good and with active marketing kicking in in April, we expect a pretty good year I say.

I will try to share more insight, tips, and tricks in the future, because I want this blog to become a good source of information. So please bear with us, we have a couple of last urgent items to clear and then hopefully everything will be more smooth.

Take care all.