An Interview with Bill Parker
Q: Bill, you are well known in the Alpha Community, probably best know for your long time Alpha Five addition, A5Doc. But you have been around the Alpha community much longer than Alpha Five has been! Can you tell us when you first became involved with Alpha Software's database products?
I came from the mainframe world and started using PC databases in 1990. After trying a couple other products, a friend gave me his copy of Alpha Four v1. It was a great fit. Alpha Four v2 was out shortly, and I started to use it for personal and business work. I found a local user group, which I highly recommend as a supplement to the great Alpha message board. By 1992 I was leading our local group, and still am today. That ultimately led to two terms as president of the 500 member umbrella group to which we belong, and five years coordinating the 30 special interest groups (yes, even Access) in the North Texas PC User Group. So Alpha has given me a great opportunity to get involved.
Q: You are the principle of ParTec Database Systems. Can you tell us a little about your company and the type of work you do?
My use of Alpha products in a consulting capacity just happened accidentally. It was mostly as a result of my involvement with the local user group, although very little business has come directly from that group. By getting involved, opportunities began to arise from places I had not expected. I had not really planned on starting a database consulting business, but it is what I have done for the last 11 years!
Other than A5Doc, I do primarily custom development. My customers range in size from very small businesses to corporate departments. The industries vary also, from a collection agency to non-profits to a large telecom company. Most have been long-term customers. I see most jobs as a work flow process, and in that regard different industries have many similarities. It is enjoyable to be able to learn new industries and still be able to use similar Alpha Five techniques across the board. What makes it interesting for me is that each software project has a different "personality" to match the emphasis of the client.
I have been fortunate in the past to never be involved with accounting applications. Too many people have already solved that problem. However, I find myself now doing a multi-national accounting application that gives me plenty of opportunity to ponder money flow. (Talk about brain freeze.) It is more enjoyable than I thought it would be, but that may be because the people are great!
I do have a few custom applications that I use personally, and one may have a possibility of becoming a product in the non-Alpha world. But my basic business is custom development.
Q: You are located in Dallas Texas. How do you see the potential for Alpha development work in your area?
It almost does not make any difference where developers are located any more. With internet access to their system, I can respond more quickly to customer problems than by physically going there. However, since I am a "work flow" kind of guy, it is helpful and enjoyable to meet with customers to see how applications might be tweaked to better fit their particular way of operating. I do have some customers around the country, but most are in the north Texas area.
That is one issue with packaged programs like A5Doc, and Alpha Five for that matter. The developer may add nifty capabilities that many in the user community never discover. Being closer to the user is a way for the developer to get more immediate gratification by watching someone use an application and knowing how to quickly solve problems. Or maybe it is just that I have limited insight into human nature, and need to see it for myself!
Q: In a software world dominated by a few large companies, do you find any resistance when you tell prospective clients that their solutions will be created using Alpha Five?
I have never had much of an issue with acceptance of Alpha Five as a technology, but I have also not spent any time trying to convince an Access shop to use Alpha. Most of my customers have come to me by word of mouth, so that has almost eliminated the question of database technology. I get more questions about file server vs. client/server technology. However if it does come up, my two approaches are references, and if needed, suggesting a small proof of concept application. With field rules and other development conveniences, Alpha can quickly show some impressive results.
A couple times I have just separated the design phase from the development phase, and delayed the choice of database technology. After establishing credibility in design, the choice of database technology has not been as big an issue.
Too often developers solve just the technical issue, without thinking about the context in which the customer will use the application. I have certainly done that, but it is more satisfying to both sides if you put yourself in the customer's shoes and can bring up the questions that they should be asking.
Q: Tell us about your transition from Alpha Four to Alpha Five?
In a word, painful. It probably took me 9 months to make the transition. I tell myself it was because I was so deeply steeped in the A4 way of doing things. But I was pleased to see newcomers to Alpha have absolutely no problem with Alpha Five. Ultimately I did not do much consulting work with Alpha Five v1. I started in more earnestly with A5 v2, and finally felt comfortable when xbasic came to A5 v3.
If you want to learn something really well, try to teach it to someone else. About that time, Alpha was starting their own web message board and pulling back from the Compuserve message board that had been one of their support outlets. Compuserve had an active Alpha group, so in order to keep it going I got Compuserve to give me sysop status to manage the Alpha forum. For the next two years while people moved to Alpha's web message board I spent a lot of time answering questions on the Compuserve forum. This was a definite help in my learning of Alpha Five. Unfortunately, most other vendors did not create the quality web messaging environment that Alpha has, so the good old days of Compuserve support forums are missed.
I still have one customer with an Alpha Four application. They still ask for new capabilities in that Alpha Four application. What they don't realize is that for the last three years all the new apps I have built are in Alpha Five! We are now converting the last remnants of that Alpha Four application to Alpha Five.
Q: Can you tell us the story behind your A5Doc application? How did this get started?
Well, it got started in the Alpha Four days. Joe Holland had written a freeware form documentation utility, JHDoc, in 1993 to supplement the A4Doc utility that was provided by Alpha. However Joe had left the Alpha community and the program would not run in newer versions of Alpha Four. I tracked Joe down and he was happy to let me modify his program. So I rewrote much of it and added features. I also wrote the freeware RptList utility. Both of these were distributed on Alpha's old BBS and on Compuserve before the advent of the current web message board. Some people just need stuff like that, and I am one of them.
Alpha was not planning to add an equivalent to A4Doc for Alpha Five, so I started to write another freeware utility as I had done in Alpha Four. The task got bigger and bigger, and many of the capabilities I needed did not exist in Alpha Five v3. After conversations with Selwyn, it was decided to try to make a product, if what I was doing worked out. This was at the beginning of development of version 4, and Cian Chamblis added many features that I needed (bless his heart). After two years it was done.
With the amount of time that went into development, I did not feel I could make it freeware again. So the pricing did help to pay for part of the development time. Because of the registration system I did password protect some of the scripts, but I also wanted to leave as much of the code as possible open so others could follow the techniques I had used. I am very liberal in commenting code, and like Cal Locklin, I had also developed naming conventions and a style guide for use in my xbasic code. So you can run the documentor on A5Doc itself and hopefully get some useful info.
Q: With Alpha Five version 5, your A5Doc went from a standalone application, in versions 3 through 4.5, to an Addin in version 5. Personally I couldn't do without your documentation application in any of its versions. But I've got to say that I really like the way it is now integrated into version 5. Can you tell us a little about the change from an application to an Addin?
As you say, there were not addins before Alpha Five version 5. So to run A5Doc you had to open the A5Doc database and then point it to the application database to be documented. That was inconvenient, particularly if you quickly wanted a small piece of documentation. Selwyn's development of the addin feature for version 5 made all the difference in the world. Now A5Doc can be quickly used for "context" documentation, or can be opened to its main menu for more complete documentation.
As far as my development efforts in moving A5Doc from Alpha Five version 4 to version 5, the big thing is that the programming context changes. When you are in your own database, as A5Doc was previously, you control the entire environment. With an addin you are running in someone else's database environment, and in fact the user might even open a different database while A5Doc stays open! So the big thing is "don't screw up the user's environment"! Things like global variables, which were used in A5Doc v2, were not appropriate for A5Doc v5. There is a new addin variable space, but I did not know about it at the time. Forms have been replaced with xdialogs. Everything now is in xbasic/xdialog, well almost everything. Some reports still use the Alpha Five report writer since it is so easy to format nice looking output. Some reports now use Notepad because of its faster speed, but the output does not look very good.
The other change of course is new features that were added. The first version of A5Doc concentrated on documenting field rules and scripts in the various places they occur. In the current version, effort went into documenting other objects like layouts and indexes, but a lot of the development time went into how to use the documentation once you have it. Most useful for me is the global search that with one search lets you search for text strings in all scripts, layouts, indexes, field rules, structures, etc. Of course there is also context documentation. I find I often right click a table and print the structure when I need to make notes on changes.
As Alpha moves to storing more objects in an XML environment in version 7, it will open up more opportunities for documenting.
Q: What potential do you see for the Addin technology in Alpha Five?
The Alpha Five documentation does not list a definition for an "addin". I define it as anything external to Alpha Five that enhances the operation or development process, and works as if it were an integral part of Alpha Five.
Currently there are six addins that are listed on Alpha's product page for Alpha Five v5. Both Alpha and 3rd parties have released addins. In fact, Cal Locklin has written an A5Doc Lister addin for the A5Doc addin! Cal has also written several other addins that are listed in the Code Archive section of the message board. Other than the addins listed on Alpha's product page, Cal's addins are the only ones I see mentioned in the Code Archive.
An addin is not one specific thing, and users should not think just in terms of purchased addins. Simply adding an external script library under database properties qualifies as an addin in my mind, so it is easy to create addins for your personal use.
Other addins can be the creation of an AEX file such as Alpha's Netmailer or Reportmailer. if you have bought them, they are listed in the Addin Manager. But you can easily create your own AEX files from the scripts on the Code tab of the control panel. This is one way developers protect their xbasic code in a customer environment.
A5Doc is an addin, but it does not have an AEX file, and is not listed in the Addin Manager.
Q: Xbasic has really matured in the last couple of releases, and version 6 brings us even more enhancements along with much improved ActiveX support. From your perspective as an independent developer, what does this mean to you?
It means we continue to get the best of two worlds. A rapid development environment and increasing capability to develop any specialized application you can imagine. Sometimes I feel it is almost too much of a good thing. It is more difficult to have a good grasp on all the new capabilities when there are so many small functions being added in addition to the bullet item features of the marketing literature. I used to be one of those people that took technical manuals to bed at night to browse. However software companies are being pushed more and more to online documentation organized more like a Help file. For me, this does not lend itself to casual browsing, or to use in bed! And if I am at my desk, it always seems there other front burner issues to deal with.
So I love the new features. I am just disappointed that I sometimes do not find them as quickly as I would like.
Q: Bill, Alpha Software's Alpha Five Web Application Server has been released. How do you see this product fitting into your future?
It is a wonderful enhancement and a natural fit. Most of my customers could take advantage of this in some way, and three have expressed specific needs. My first effort is going to be for the North Texas PC User Group that I mentioned previously. I did a system using ASP a few years ago to allow our leaders to update an Access database on the web. Our ASP gurus tell me that what I want to do now is possible, but not to attempt it with ASP. It involves sending files to another server, so with the FTP capabilities built into WAS, I think it should be pretty straightforward. (Did I get enough acronyms in?) This should also get some notice from the group's Microsoft devotees that have been working on an application using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server for over a year now.
Q: Give us your thoughts on the coming client/server version of Alpha Five.
I am really looking forward to this, but with some trepidation. It will take a different mindset from the desktop applications we have been developing. Of course it is the same mindset we need for web applications - disconnected datasets. Xdialog starts us on that path. I am hoping for a new Peter Wayne book, Client/Server for Desktop Dummies.
Q: When you are not working, what do you do for enjoyment? Any hobbies or avocations?
Well, I do spend a good bit of time riding a bicycle. Not many races, but I do train for the Hotter'N Hell 100 which happens each August in Texas. I'm joined by 8-12,000 others to celebrate the heat (up to 107ºF) and wind over 100 miles of backroads. My goal is to do it in 5 hours, which I missed by only 2 minutes last year. But regardless, I celebrate with a nice bottle of wine after a long ride.
Q: I also do quite a bit of biking, but I always make sure I have an engine attached! I do not know what surprises me more, that you ride a bicycle 100 miles in the heat of Texas summer, or that 8-12,000 others join you. Any other aberrant behavior you would like to share with us?
Well, Cian Chamblis has peeked my interest in brewing beer. My wife bought me some of the tools for Christmas. I found out that empty beer bottles cost less if you buy them when they are full and drain them yourself! So after that "project" I am about ready to take the next fun step with hops, malt, and yeast. If none of it works out, I'm sure it will still be fit for my organic landscape!
The most aberrant may be the wine cellar program that a few friends are now testing for me. Aberrant because there is zero market for such a thing. I am afraid this may not fall into the category of "build it and they will come".
Bill Parker has a BA in Mathematics from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. The realities of the job market led to a greater interest in computers. At the North Texas Council of Governments, Bill managed computer support for long range transportation planning. With a shift to the vendor side of the industry, Bill sold mainframe financial and system software for ten years. In 1993 he started Partec Database Systems, specializing in application design and database development with Alpha Four and Alpha Five. Bill developed the A5Doc utility sold by Alpha Software and has been a speaker at two Alpha Five Developer's Conferences. Bill has been the leader of the Alpha Users Group in Dallas since 1992. You can reach him at bill@partec.net or via his web site at www.partec.net.