The Case for a Technical Summit
Posted On: 12/15/2006
Ever wonder why the executable for Application
Designer is called PSIDE.EXE? Well, the "internal"
name for Application Designer in the Tools group was
Integrated Development Environment, hence IDE.
Then, the marketing folks took over, and we ended up
getting something called Application Designer.
Regardless, when it first came out, I spent weeks
figuring out all the keystrokes. Alt, F, O for File Open.
Then you pressed the R key for Record, pressed the
Tab key, typed the first few letters, the pressed the Tab
key, and then the space bar to activate that "down
squiggle" box. Then Tab, then the arrow keys to select
your record, then Enter. What could be more simple
than that? And don't say "the mouse", because I
despise that thing. Anything that makes my hands
leave the keyboard reduces my productivity.
Well, in Tools 8, only a tiny portion of those keys work.
The tab key does almost nothing useful. Maybe it's
because so many of the Tools Developers grew up
with a mouse. Maybe they think it's better (they're
wrong). Maybe they simply have no pride in their
work. That's a strong statement, but I think it's fair.
To continue reading this article you must have a current VP1 Subscription.
