References -- Application Development

[References]

The following are references from various dBASE™ Application work I've done (the first is rather lengthy ...):

Evaluation of Custom dBASE Programming Project
Written for Belmont County, Ohio by Ken Mayer, Golden Stag Productions
Summer-Fall 2004
by Don Pickenpaugh,
GIS Director, Belmont County, Ohio

"Awkward" is the word to describe, however inadequately, how I feel in writing this critique on the database programming project recently completed by Ken Mayer. Though Ken did not know me before, I have looked up to him for years, having seen his name in the dBASE newsgroups and his work in the dBASE KnowledgeBase. I have used his articles and studied his sample code, coupled with training from Ted Blue of BlueStar Learning, in writing a web application for land parcel records in Belmont County, Ohio in 2002. His demeanor has been one of helpfulness and tact along with keen knowledge of the product, while skirting the dangers of arrogance and superiority - a difficult balance to maintain and project.

I finally met Ken at the dBASE Conference in Montreal, Canada in July, 2004, and learned that he was going into consulting on his own. I thought this presented a perfect opportunity to approach him about converting a dBASE IV application I had written in the 1990’s (and is still being used) to dBASE PLUS for the Belmont County Engineer’s land parcel records. Thanks to funding from the Belmont County Commissioners and Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District earlier in the year, the budget was there for this project, which I had been trying to complete on my own for over five years without success.

Ken was eager to look over the job and come up with a sample contract. This was tweaked by the County, and an agreement was entered in August. The project was underway. Numerous emails were written by both of us. Ken was always quick to respond, despite the three hour time zone difference between us, and frankly really kept me on my toes (which I secretly enjoy!). Ken’s approach resolved major questions at the beginning of the project (MDI/SDI, DEO, etc.), which steered the development of the rest of the project in a smooth, logical fashion.

The first CD was produced by Labor Day. The forms included custom buttons and calendar functionality – things we did not ask for, but were added for a touch of class in going above and beyond what was required.

Belmont County was then hit with rains from Tropical Storms Frances on September 9 and September 17. I was called upon to map high water areas and buildings affected countywide for the EMA. Almost 2300 buildings were affected, and high water resulted in one fatality. I was involved in map making and FEMA meetings, which took time from the database project. Ken understood and was very patient with me during this time, though he didn’t let me slip too much! I appreciate his realistic outlook in this situation.

The project continued with many emails and Q & A’s. A final CD was produced by Thanksgiving. The project came in under cost. Actually, things went so well that more features were added such as import and export routines and rollback functionality, still under budget. The program is in testing at this time, and Ken has graciously committed to fixing any bugs at no additional cost to the County.

The source code is included in the project, and Ken has done a wonderful job of commenting it heavily so the logic can be followed and edits made if necessary. I would not have been able to approach setting up the project to the level Ken has, but I can edit certain things based on previous experience with dBASE, and commented code provides for this. Documentation is also provided, detailing installation procedures for the developer’s and users’ computers, allowing multi-user access to the tables with compiled executables. Record locking is included, as well as an adjustable timeout function which cancels any edits not completed within a specified amount of time.

The program allows editing of over 60,000 parcels in Belmont County, and transferring them from one owner to the next when deeds come into the Engineer’s Office for review and the initial step in the transfer process. A report for transfer history is also included. The parcel table is in Level 4 format, and hence can be joined to parcel polygons using GIS software to produce digital parcel shape files with attached attributes. This will play an important part in providing tax maps in digital form in the future.

When I think of this project and of Ken, I think of these qualities: open, willing, patient, courteous, knowledgeable, tactful, graceful, insightful, skilled, targeted, approachable, timely. His favorite word is “weird.” His favorite expression is “<g>.” To avoid the whitewash brush altogether, though, I say, “Get over it a get a copy of MS Word.” (You can still keep your WordPerfect!)

It has been a pleasure and positive learning experience working with Golden Stag Productions.

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Praise for The Ordinary and Armorial Database (names are SCA names)
"I would like to thank you for providing this invaluable software. It has made my life as a consulting herald considerably easier." -- Cadell Blaidd du

"I want to thank you for all the work you have done with the O and A software. I have found it to be extremely useful as Pursuivant-at-Large (soon to become my group's herald/pursuivant)." -- Fionnseach du Lochielle

[References]

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