<< Mr. Young, to be clear, I'm not sarcastic about your company or you personally, not at all, but I am sarcastic about the arguments that I was fed here. I admire your dedication and professional approach, which I felt from your answers on this forum. >>

Thank you.

However, here's what I would recommend: stop discussing things with everyone here like the other person is an idiot or doesn't know what they're talking about.  You seem to be completely unable to understand that someone else might have entirely different, yet completely valid motivations and reasons for doing things differently from what you believe to be the "correct" route.

Having said that, this *has* been the most lively discussion we've had on here in years, so please don't stop pushing for new features or making the product better.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

<< It's not my business and I do not know how much Tim earns on this, but I'm very surprised that he spends so much effort in supporting his database products that in my opinion do not stand the competition, instead of focusing on his unique product. >>

Are you capable of posting a message that *doesn't* insult our products in some way ?

And for why we keep our database products going: it's because we have customers that depend upon us to do so because they have products that make a lot of money and rely on them.  In other words, the very thing that you're so worried about: being around when the developer needs us to be, long after things stop being shiny and new.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

<< This approach works for many companies, even in a FOSS world, maybe especially in a FOSS world. You may give your goods for free and sell your expertise then. Exactly as it is on this forum, IMO. I suppose we all paid for this. >>

BTW, trying to do FOSS for B2B in a small market is a recipe for self-impoverishment.  Our number one obligation to our customers is to stay in business and be there every day to support our products, not try to win some software lottery and hopefully make some money on the back end.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

<< I would say your choice is questionable, particularly in light of this: https://www.elevatesoft.com/forums?action=view&category=ewb&id=ewb_general&msg=14763&page=1
"tens of thousands of currency" are incompatible to this DB, IMO. (Sorry for saying this, Tim) Maybe you had no choice then? >>

It's a bug.  Software products have bugs and, unfortunately, the test coverage on DBISAM, a product that started in 1998, wasn't as good as our newer products like ElevateDB.

Or are you saying that other software products don't have bugs ?

You seem to be really intent on "scoring points" against us by pointing out our flaws.  What is the reason for this ?  If you really don't like our products, then what is the point of you being here ?  If you're dissatisfied with EWB, we are more than happy to refund your money and allow you to proceed on your way.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

By “tens of thousands of currency� I mean businesses will lose money.
Dollars, pounds. Being used in more than one country I didn’t want to be
specific.

Erick,

<< Not to pick on Elevate, but my only concern with almost any small software businesses would be to know that there is a succession plan.  I'd like to know generally that there is a source copy in escrow (legal word for safe recoverable backup) in case of fire or an accident, and that the family or heirs can pass a product along to someone who would maintain it if necessary. >>

We originally actually had the software in escrow, but it changes so much now that it became a major pain to keep updated (our lawyer's issue, not a technical one).

We have safe backups of everything, Elevate Software, Inc. holds key-man insurance on me, and we have a plan in place in case anything ever happens to me.  So, while everything won't be exactly the same, Sam knows what she has to do in case I leave this earth, and she will have the funds available to keep things going while she gets everything re-organized without me.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim Young [Elevate Software] wrote:

> moving to using closures/Lambdas would involve re-writing the way that all callbacks work in EWB, as well as breaking the entire model of Self as it relates to event handlers.  It would effectively involve making EWB's Object Pascal deal with event handling like JS, instead of like Object Pascal.

Perhaps I was misleaded by your: "Absolutely, they are certainly not tough to implement"?

> It just so happens that the first two are the problems that everyone *else* solves. Why ? Because they're fairly easy and don't require much original thought.

No, because they directly affect the performance of the programmer.

>  run-time serialization of classes to/from JSON (and no, it's not the same as JS)

Is that why it doesn't serialize variants?

>  It just so happens that such hard problems take a lot of time

I already understood this. Sir, can I write about the problems I see in this forum? If so, I can not choose clCyan color because it very likely is clAqua (I see it like that).

> So, I suggest that you spend some more time with the product before passing judgement.

Perhaps my expectations were too high and you are right, I just need to get used to EWB.

> You seem to be completely unable to understand that someone else might have entirely different, yet completely valid motivations and reasons for doing things differently from what you believe to be the "correct" route.

I do not offer any routes here, neither "correct" nor wrong. I just asked whether it's possible to make closures in EWB. I also wrote about what I do not really like about the EWB (yet?) and what worries me a little.That's it.

> Are you capable of posting a message that *doesn't* insult our products in some way ?

Why do you perceive reasonable criticism as an insult?

> Or are you saying that other software products don't have bugs ?

No, I am not saying that. I want to say that the product has its own niche and this is good for you, but I personally would not keep any critical data in it. Maybe I am not alone in this. Does this offend you somehow? May I say this?

> You seem to be really intent on "scoring points" against us by pointing out our flaws.  

No. Believe me, it's not like that.

> What is the reason for this ?

I myself did not expect this discussion to turn into what it turned into.

> If you really don't like our products, then what is the point of you being here?

Because it's a support forum and I came here to ask some questions I have no answer to.

> If you're dissatisfied with EWB, we are more than happy to refund your money and allow you to proceed on your way.

I think I just use it wrong way. I'd like to ask some questions about that, but I afraid to be not understood again. So I'd better keep quiet and think about your offer.

<< There are a bit too many such things for a project of its age, isn't it? Ah, it's a one-man company, focused on quality, I forgot, sorry. >>

Here is the reality:

EWB 2 is 3 years old, as of June.  EWB 2 was essentially a complete re-write of EWB 1's IDE environment, due to completely different component/UI/designer models and implementations.  EWB 1 was simply built on an old architecture, due to which browsers it could target as the baseline (IE8).

You can see a list of everything that's been done during EWB 2.x here:

https://www.elevatesoft.com/download?action=info&category=ewb&type=ewbtrial&majorversion=2&version=2.06

I've been working on EWB 3 since last July, so everything that you see there has occurred primarily within 2 years.

So, I'm not sure what you're implying by these continued snarky comments about what I've been doing with my time, but I can assure that if you are trying to simply be disruptive or argumentative, then I'm going to ask you to stop right now.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

<< Perhaps I was misleaded by your: "Absolutely, they are certainly not tough to implement"? >>

They aren't, which is different from what I said, which is that they don't fit very well into the existing method pointer/event handler architecture of EWB's components.

<< No, because they directly affect the performance of the programmer. >>

Yes, if you're writing a ton of code, something that *isn't* necessary in most cases with EWB.  EWB is (currently) for writing *client* applications, so 80% of that will involve UI design and handling and other non-heavy-coding activities.  This in particular is why I have spent so much time on the UI/components at the expense of the code editor and other traditional IDE functions.

<< Is that why it doesn't serialize variants? >>

Your point ?  Or are you just trying to score points again ?  I keep trying to honestly answer your questions, but it's really hard to tell if you're actually curious or trolling me.

<< Perhaps my expectations were too high and you are right, I just need to get used to EWB. >>

Perhaps you need to stop writing comments like that...

<< I do not offer any routes here, neither "correct" nor wrong. I just asked whether it's possible to make closures in EWB. I also wrote about what I do not really like about the EWB (yet?) and what worries me a little.That's it.  >>

Yes, and had you stopped there, you would have been fine.  Instead, you decided to delve into the history/structure of our company, the development pace of EWB, criticizing our other products, etc.  That is not how you have a reasonable technical discussion.  That may fly in FOSS comment areas elsewhere, but it doesn't here.

<< Why do you perceive reasonable criticism as an insult? >>

You are interspersing reasonable criticism with completely unfounded, sarcastic comments. I'm asking you to stop with the latter.

<< No, I am not saying that. I want to say that the product has its own niche and this is good for you, but I personally would not keep any critical data in it. Maybe I am not alone in this. Does this offend you somehow? >>

Of course it offends me - I wrote it and you're implying that it is unusable for its core purpose of existence.  

DBISAM has been used for many, many applications and is still used to this day in many corporations around the world, and they *all* store critical data in it.

<< I myself did not expect this discussion to turn into what it turned into. >>

Neither did I, yet here we are.

<< Because it's a support forum and I came here to ask some questions I have no answer to. >>

Which is fine, but when you stray into making random, insulting remarks about our company and products, you're not really "just asking questions" anymore, are you ?

<< I think I just use it wrong way. I'd like to ask some questions about that, but I afraid to be not understood again. >>

You're free to ask as many questions as you would like.  However, leave out the sarcasm and random insults.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

May I answer? I will do my best to be clear, honest and not insulting. However I really didn't want to insult anybody here. Perhaps my English is bad or it's due to cultural differences, or both.