new user hi and some questions

[csaunders <csa...@da...>]

Hi all,

what an intreguing product, whilst i thoroughly enjoyed the product once it 
was installed, the installation process was a trial-by-fire! we have had 
PostgreSQL installed for about 12 months, and perl too, and getting DBI 
installed was a no brainer with MCPAN.

however getting DBD:Pg to install took me over 4 hours, mostly due to the 
fact that i had to hunt out what the exact variables should be , and then 
determine why the test script wouldn't work (it couldn't log on because it 
couldn't determine the postgres user and pwd for some reason so i ended up 
setting the POSTGRES_USERNAME and POSTGRES_PASSWORD in the environment). My 
background is not perl (half the problem!), however I am a reasonably 
experienced SCO admin and INFORMIX dba and I believe that unless the 
installation procedure went perfectly it would be an impossible ride for a 
less technically minded user.

I appreciate that nobody in this list may be the maintainers for DBD:Pg but 
judging by the user postings I am not the only person to have these similar 
install problems with the DBD:Pg module. It would be a shame to have the 
difficult install problems of DBD:Pg reflect on sql-ledger (unless of 
course the install problems all reflect my lack of knowledge and are not 
indicative of the typical user!!!)

however the features list is impressive!

questions:

1) is there any documentation at all, whether technical or user orientated?
2) is there an ERD or similar? i am keen to consider porting our data from 
our current package into SQL ledger to test its functionality
3) I assume because its all PERL that i have all the source, is there any 
docs on how the mods fit together so i can consider customisation? in 
particular i am keen to add reports etc
4) I suspect i will want to add fields to tables etc, will i wreck the 
current scripts or can they cope with more fields than was originally 
planned?
5) for these extra fields, how easy is it to modify the data entry forms to 
accomodate the extra fields?
6) the up and comming features look neat, can i get rough ideas on the 
timelines for them to be implemented or when the next version ETA is?

sorry for the heaps of questions, i appreciate they may not be all easy to 
answer!

ta
cs



Kind Regards

Colin Saunders
Director
DataByte Software Ltd
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