Continuation without compulsion

In other words, persisting in something because of its benefits, and not because one must. Such is my relationship with DataPerfect, with which I became acquainted in 1988, as I began* that portion of my career spent with WordPerfect Corporation. I continue to use DP regularly, having, in the last four months alone, created nine database applications to assist me in my current job as a web developer.

DataPerfect is a software jewel, very compact yet complete and powerful. It's most remarkable characteristic is that it has enabled people who would never have considered themselves programmers to create wonderfully useful data-based applications. People are considered computer-literate** if they can use programs to do work. They are programmers when they can create applicatons that other people can use to do work.

There are descriptions of DataPerfect in words, but of course the best way to understand it would be to learn to use it. The setting for the jewel is DOS, which modern computers no longer run directly***. Here are some dimensions that could be included in such a description.

1. Modes: define mode vs. run mode
2. Organization: panels, fields, indexes, and links
3. Usage: single user vs. multiple concurrent users
4. Operations: lookup, browse, create (i.e. data entry), edit, and delete
5. Relationships: one to one, many to one, one to many, and many to many
6. Communication: clipboard, importing, exporting, phoning, reporting, and printing
7. Security: none, definer password, user credentials
8. Usability: panel and report lists vs. menus
9. Help: general, context-sensitive for each field
10. Add-ons: print spooling, mouse usage
11. Documentation: manual, books, web sites
12. Support: active community

An article with a good description of DP was written many years ago by Ralph Alvy****. It touches on items 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11 and 12 from the outline above. Unfortunately, the links in this article are no longer working (suffering from "link rot") but you can find information about his book at https://www.sanbachs.net/compusofl/dpbook.html.

I expect to continue using DP any time that I need to process textual data with any amount of structure, not from compulsion, but because it is so very useful.

* At first, I was kept busy with a new language that our team was creating, TOOL, later described in my dissertation. The purpose of TOOL was to become the next implementation language for a new and different version of DataPerfect. Once the new language was up and running, I felt that it was important to learn what DataPerfect was, and so I gradually became an expert user, despite the fact that others on my team assured me that that wasn't necessary. I'm glad I did.

** Several years before this story, I taught computer literacy courses as an itinerant instructor for Lethbridge Community College. Generally, these were three week courses, and I would take my Apple ][ computer and drive to a small town one evening a week to join a small group of adults in a local school computer lab. First a three hour session on word processing. The second week another three hour session on spreadsheets. Finally a three hour session on databases. Both interest and mastery trailed off during each such course. Most people grasped word processing, which was after all, a lot like using a typewriter. They had more trouble with spreadsheets, and didn't get databases at all. I think it was too abstract. And probably too much based on a textual description of what would later happen. Making that connection, between a textual description, and something that happens later because of it, is what separates programmers from non-programmers.

*** Instead, one must first install a DOS virtual machine, as outlined in this story about one DP application.

**** The article is not dated, but is probably from around the turn of the century (which makes it "dated" in that sense of the word, but still applicable). Incidentally, Ralph is a good example of someone who is not self-described as a programmer, yet who has created DP applications, and even wrote a book about it!