Re: Prior experience of successful minivend users/ learning curve

[Larry Leszczynski <larryl@furph.com>]

******    message to minivend-users from Larry Leszczynski <larryl@furph.com>     ******


Some comments on getting up the learning curve...

> I still don't know a whole lot about the databases, other than
> tab-delimitted ASCII works just fine for me with a couple hundred items.

I've stuck with tab-delimited ASCII for the most part too - it's easy, the
shopkeepers understand it (for the most part), and the performance has
been perfectly fine even with much more than a couple hundred items. 
Especially if you use the EXCEL attribute - even my most computer-phobic
clients have managed to learn to "Save as tab delimited" from an Excel
file and upload their own products.asc changes. 


> The first thing I did when setting up Minivend was to print every last
> page of docs, every unique HTML page, the configs, the reports, the
> READMEs, and the databases.  And I read EVERY page from top to bottom and
> read it again and then went at it with a hi-liter.  Really.

I'm too lazy for that, I admire your endurance!  :-)  I started with the
"simple" demo catalog and tweaked as necessary.  When I needed to make it
perform a specific task, or to add a specific feature, I searched the docs
for any reference/word/phrase I could find that seemed relevant.  My basic
assumption is that if I need to do something, there is a way to do it with
MiniVend (Mike: insert pat on the back here).

I think this would be my strongest recommendation: Don't get overwhelmed
by the amount of documentation, and get *very* familiar with *any* search
mechanism you have available to you, and use it extensively.  Search
search search.  There's a lot of documentation, and sometimes the info you
need (or a valuable tidbit you didn't know you were looking for) is not
where you would have first thought to look.

I usually first head for the "Find" button on my browser and search the
HTML docs.  This is the best for those questions you see like "what does
dl mean in that search?" - well, type "dl" into the Find box and see what
you get, and go from there!  I also use grep (a UNIX command line search
utility) on the HTML docs as well as the perl code in bin/minivend and
lib/Vend/*, and the "Search" facility at minivend.com. 

I have gone back as time allowed and read through the docs and FAQS as
Ryan did (although not all at once!).  There is a lot of value in doing
that as it gives a better idea of "the big picture".  But I know it was a
big confidence boost for me to get that first storefront up and running
quickly, without feeling like I had to be an expert to do it. 


> My only regret is I was never able to drink (at work) while developing the
> store!

;-)


Larry Leszczynski
larryl@furph.com
--
  furph, Inc.	WWW/Unix/Windows Solutions	734-513-7763 (voice)
info@furph.com	   http://www.furph.com		734-513-7759 (FAX)

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