I want the Title here If i don't know HTML, how'd I add title or apply formatting to my comments?
-- Rajesh A. S. Pethe, October 8, 2004
I think it more important than ever to keep a tight rein on the features incorporated into an application.I built a simple order processing system whose main purpose was to enable lots of new items to be quickly entered onto the system without first setting up stock parts. The system was developed with Delphi 4 and Access 97. It worked fine. Then along comes Delphi 2005 together with supped up 3rd part controls, Microsoft Sql Server Express, .net etc. All this newly available technolgy exerts a pull and you soon start asking yourself: How can this new technology be used to improve my existing application ? It is not difficult usually to find ways in which it might.
Sql Server is much more secure than Access 97 for networking. I have to admit but for pressure of other work I was sorely tempted to have go at a technological upgrade. Fortunately, I realised it be a major undertaking. As an after thought I wondered how the application features themselves might be improved on the current platform. I couldn't see much scope as it was a fairly bare bones system and I would want to leave any major new features until I upgraded and could take advantaged of new technology. But I was wrong.
For all the standard reasons, the idea was that orders would be entered sometime before the goods were delivered so that when they arrived they could be quickly checked in and we could check we only got what we had ordered. However, as the goods were always new to the organisation and were not fully described on the order forms, they could only be entered after they had been delivered and examined. Really, the order system wasn't being used as intended. However, it was still necessary to go through all the effort of entering orders before deliveries could be accepted. All we really needed was a system to record deliveries. At a stroke a large part of the system could be eliminated.
I'm sure the above small scale example must apply to many larger scale systems. I was interested to read that as recently as 2003 Zara (one of Europes most sucessful fashion chains ) was running its tills on the Dos operating system and moving data around terminals on floppy disc - see "Zara: IT for Fast Fashion" Harvard Business School 9-604-081. It makes you wonder if one of the most succesful companies can operate this way what the less succesful companies are doing with their networked computer systems. Have they really thought through their requirements or are the IT professionals effectively in charge and application uopgrade = techological upgrade ?
-- Andrew Johnson, November 25, 2005
All this is just as relevant today as when you wrote it. Many thanks for this stuff.
-- Neil Roberts, November 12, 2007