Subj : IBM Developer's Toolbox
To   : Vitus Jensen
From : David Noon
Date : Mon Oct 09 2000 01:19 pm

Hi Vitus,

Replying to a message of Vitus Jensen to David Noon:

 VJ> 06.10.2000, David Noon wrote a message to All:

 DN>> Mine arrived today. It is much cheaper than the Developer Connection
 DN>> programme was at the Enterprise level.

 DN>> The presentation of the CD's is much nicer, with a leather [or vinyl
 DN>> leatherette?] case to hold the dozens of CD's. 

 VJ> Huh, a new case and a complete set of CDs?  I've just got the magazine
 VJ> (subscription was DevCon Advanced and is now xxxx).

I received a stack of CD's and the case, as well as the magazine.

I was also on Dev Con Advanced, but renewed at the Enterprise level. However, 
the subscription for Dev Toolbox was only UKP135, whereas Dev Con Enterprise 
was UKP731. [Prices exclude VAT.] It is not really that much better, but it is 
much cheaper.

 DN>> By the time I have installed it all, using Netscape, the next edition
 DN>> will be out.

 VJ> They do an installation on hard disk?  Great.

The catalogue does not install onto a hard disk, unlike the original, 
pre-Netscape Dev Con. There is a hard-copy catalogue inside the vinyl/leather 
case, though.

 VJ> I hated to search first
 VJ> for the CD with the master cataloge (they do not always had a writing
 VJ> on it...), open the cataloge with Netscape, search an interesting
 VJ> item/product/documentation, search the CD with the item, open a
 VJ> commandline to install the product, goto start.

I have a Nakamichi CD-changer installed in this box, so I can have 5 CD's 
on-line simultaneously.

 VJ> Not to mention that my machine locked up two or more times in 
 VJ> the process when I tried to use the Java cataloge. Thank you IBM for
 VJ> the wonderfull DevCon 2.  I can't think of a way to make the
 VJ> thing more useless.

Well, the Web was the word when Dev Con 2 was formulated. You had to look at it 
from the product manager's point of view: anything that didn't require a 
bloated browser was legacy technology.

 VJ> And you say the Developer Toolbox is much better now?

I guess it's "better" in a Microsoft way: it looks nicer, but the contents are 
still much the same.

 VJ> I'm looking forward to receive the CDs...

Well, there are plenty of them. They even include a mainframe [see origin line] 
version of DB2 V6.1, just like I use at work.

Regards

Dave
<Team PL/I>

--- FleetStreet 1.25.1
 * Origin: My other computer is an IBM S/390 (2:257/609.5)

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