[ic] Wanted: Support Group - opinions?

[Devin Harris]

>>It is pretty obvious to me that there needs to be a separation between
>>the advanced technical discussions going on here and a mail group for
>>those people wanting to ask more simple questions about say, setup
>>issues. 
> 
> I have been trying to get an Interchange store together now for over two 
> years, off and on, and as I'm doing this for someone else, I'm not the only 
> one who's pissed that I haven't been able to get it finished yet. Of course, 
> I've had to code a number of modifications so Interchange was by no means an 
> out-of-the-box solution for me.
> 
> I have probably struggled more with learning Interchange than any language or 
> software I have used before (including various flavors of ASM, and C), purely 
> because of poor or non-existant documentation. I still know next to nothing 
> about the innards of Interchange.
> 
> Trying to decipher the source is not a practical solution for most people. I 
> can just about get by thanks to the Llama and my background in C, but I still 
> struggle. I also have 'The Camel' (which I have not had time to read yet), 
> but even if you know your way around Perl, who wants to become an expert in 
> the internal workings of Interchange when all you're really trying to do is 
> get an online store setup?! Of course, it would save a great deal of time and 
> frustration if my questions could have been answered on the list, but as 
> someone pointed out, list members are not getting paid to sit there all day 
> waiting for questions to answer.

Thanks for the honesty. I wouldn't expect any help or support in making 
even minor modifications to Interchange. It is great that this group 
functions and supplies an arena for serious programming. I made radical 
modifications to cityshop a year ago without any such assistance.

There is a wild difference between modifying code and setting up a store 
to take orders with little or no design modifications. Part of what 
upsets me is that Interchange is the best open source cart I have ever 
come across, which means that a lot of ordinary joes are going to come 
along and try to use it to sell their paintings, or crafts, or whatever, 
especially as hosting companies supply the program. It is not too 
difficult to modify the Interchange default store. I had virtually all 
of my store done without using any documentation. But then I tried to 
insert the product options, such as small, medium, large, which went 
fine, except that I found the cart would not remember the customers 
choice. I took the most obvious route and ran into what so far has been 
an unsolvable problem. Yet, I have a weeks work in.

I did of course go to the documentation and found virually nothing about 
setting up options. I did search this groups previous posts, I went back 
through looking for some mention of what I determined must be a common 
problem for beginners. I immediately noticed a lot of unanswered 
beginner questions in the list, and found no mention of this issue. When 
I wrote I made the question as simple and direct as I could, assuming 
this must be an issue someone is aware of. I did try to add an option to 
a fresh setup of IC and the same problem occured. Apparently the options 
you create in the items/options tab must syncronize with other data, and 
I tried figuring out where, and in tables I found the more detailed 
options page, but still could not make the program remember option 
choices there either.

So my comments, my request to create a beginners group, arose because 
this is a problem anyone will face who takes a simple, possibly the most 
simple, route in setting up a store. It must have come up in the past.

I am an observer, a problem solver by nature. I am used to dealing with 
complex problems. This is free software. I don't expect much of anyone 
in this scenario, but it definitely upsets me to find that I don't see 
the most basic kind of starter documentation, just a simple step by step 
description of how to create a working store, and simultaneously sense a 
dislike for the beginners who stumble in to this situation with no 
experience in how to even remove themselves from the list.

Perhaps the options issue exists intentionally as a way to get the user 
who has already invested a lot of time to pay for support, perhaps not. 
I don't know. At this point I am mystified. What infuriates me is that I 
see a trap, and people not caring, and somehow staying ignorant of the 
gross amount of time good people will spend and undoubtably waste, 
diligantly trying to setup a store. When all they lack is simplified 
how-to instructions, something that would probably only take a few hours 
to produce.

The absurd thing is that being such a excellent cart, which could be 
used by beginners and advanced users alike, providing such simple 
documentation would probably greatly accelerate the use of the cart 
system on the net and end up bringing a lot of paid work to the programmers.

To quote a friend:

"Since I was a child, I have been intrigued by the apparent harmony in 
nature and the apparent lack thereof in human society. I think it is 
ironic that the trillions of cells that make up our physical bodies can 
work together so harmoniously, and yet a mere 6.5 billion humans, who 
have so much more potential than these tiny cells, cannot even end 
strife and rivalry amongst ourselves. I have always believed that 
collectively, we have a potential for something wonderful - something 
far greater than what we can possibly achieve individually or 
uncooperatively."

Human society is of course much more latent with personal issues, as we 
are free and independent, and struggle with ourselves as much as a 
complex external system. But as far as basic how-to instructions, 
"strive to balance a sense of self with a sense of the many."

http://everythingforever.com/st_order3.htm