Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4
What does your group want to do with OOP that it cannot? Not knowing what your group does, there are lots of possible answers!
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We do special project and software development for our clients. Before any project can start it must be defined conceptually as well as technically. We start with general descriptions and then add more detail to each group, section, module, feature, etc. We then add more detail to each of those parts. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. All of this lends it self beautifully to a hierarchical approach and OOP does this part well.
The problems arise when we need any type of flexibility within a document. There are many things OOP doesn't do for us in this regard. Here are just a few examples are:
- Anything like a clone or copy of another section, subsection, sub-subsection, etc, can't be done without copy/paste and there's no way to know how many if any need to be updated when one of them is. Live updating of a shared/common 'part' would solve this.
- If we need a different column layout for some sections we need to have separate documents. Linking multiple documents within multiple documents isn't a very elegant solution. Multiple column definitions in a single document, even using a tabbed interface, would solve this.
- Many documents = too many documents. A document format that would function as a simple DB containing OOP documents would solve this. Since an OOP document already serves this purpose for sections/subsections it would basically be an OOP document of OOP documents.
OOP does what it does well - it just doesn't do a lot of what we need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4
Which other apps do you see opening a lead on OOP, and why?!
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I don't know what other apps are out there to compare to OOP. I started using OOP years ago and the process of defining projects with it developed over time.
To meet our document requirements I wrote a web app to manage the process of defining the concepts, details and technical portions. It allows for sections, subsections, etc as 'parts' as well as 'live' links and relationship references to other parts. Many of the properties that would have required multiple documents due to column layouts can be added to headers of each part. We're able to assign dependencies, dates and a variety of other things that help us keep our document organized. The ability to see relationships between items is invaluable.
IMHO OG hasn't integrated OOP, OP & OF well or properly. From where I sit a project starts in OOP where it gets defined and refined. It then needs to move to OP so the project can be managed and treated like a project. OF should really be the 'client' portion of project management where a team member can get their assignments and work through them.
OOP, OP & OF can import/export parts of each other's data to varying degrees but are by no means integrated by any stretch of the imagination. If they each functioned as a separate app for those who needed the specific functionality but served as portions of a suite of apps OG would have an incredible product.
I think OG makes great software. Unfortunately it takes them forever to add features and to bring new versions to market. I don't blame them for not supplying some of the features that I need no mater how basic I think the functionality is. If they can't meet my group's needs we need to move on. However, there's no going back to a product once we've converted all our documents & data to something else whether it's a competitor's product, homegrown or colored index cards with sticky notes on them.
WSG