[ic] saving carts poorly documented

TGroup interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Mon Sep 30 15:39:00 2002


Hello readers... skip to the next post.  This is for the developers.  I have
to keep asking this same question over and over, with no one seemingly able
to answer here (Using Interchange 4.8 on a shared hosting environment, and
cannot get the "save this cart" function to work:
http://interchange.redhat.com/pipermail/interchange-users/2002-September/026
563.html).  I have received a couple of Email suggestions from a list user,
but unfortunately his suggestions are from the outset doomed by the
Interchange documentation lacking in continuity, and my own level of
understanding of Interchange. I have researched this in the lists going
several years back, and it seems it has always been a problem without a
definitive solution.  Maybe the developers don't think it's important
enough.  There are several requests for help on this question that are
simply ignored.  Why?  Well, in my case, I hope it's not because some of you
assume I am too lazy to read the docs.

So I would like to share with you observations from one who wasn't in on the
development of Interchange since Minivend and earlier, who didn't see the
development progress through thousands of contributions over the years.  To
Mike Heins and others who have contributed to the development of this
application, and of whom the brilliance of the accomplishment is undeniable,
I share these "feelings" and observations.

If you really want to help people trying to learn this application, please
remember that you have forgotten more this morning than most of us will
learn this year.

Your time is valuable, but wasted on us dummies when jotting down ultra
short snippets of "solutions" that can only really solve something for us
dummies if the logic preceding and following the "solution" is at least
hinted at, and only then if the documentation offers continuity, and is
updated to include missing bits that were apparently intended to be a part
of the "final version".  Otherwise, would you mind asking Nick at CPanel to
remove Interchange from its offerings, or at least replace the "easy to
configure" declaration with "Dummies Keep Away!" (you might also post that
at the mailing lists, and at Interchangeville).

Observation #1:  Interchange is not user friendly unless the user is a
programmer proficient in:  ITL, Perl, Linux.
Observation #2:  The sheer volume of the various documents found at several
different sources, upon close examination for continuity, reveals that
comments, instructions and remarks were many times made with the assumption
that the reader is starting on page one and reading to the end (page 700?).
Take for example, this snippet explaining "Carts" from Kevin Walsh's
painstakingly developed RTFM
(http://www.interchange.rtfm.info/docs/frames/icdatabase_54.html).
<! -- BEGINNING OF EXPLANATION -->
8.7. Carts
The contents of shopping carts may be saved or recalled in much the same
fashion. See the Simple demo application ord/basket.html page for an
example.
<! -- END OF EXPLANATION -->
Observation #3:  RE: "much the same fashion" as what?
Observation #4:  RE: "See the Simple demo application ord/basket.html page
for an example"
(http://www.interchange.rtfm.info/docs/frames/iccattut_34.html) ATTENTION:
There is no example of saving a cart there.

>From RedHat's documentation (ictags: save_cart)
http://www.icdevgroup.org/cgi-bin/ic/docfly.html?mv_arg=ictags06.18
<! -- BEGINNING OF EXPLANATION -->
save_cart
This tag saves the current cart or recurring order in the userdb under a
given name.

Observation #5:  That's nice.  Where does one create the tag?

Summary

    [save_cart nickname recurring]
    [save_cart nickname="cart-name" recurring=1]
Positional parameters: The first line shows the usage with positional
parameters (given in order). The second line shows usage with named
parameters.

 Parameters   Description                               Default
 nickname     Label for the cart.                       none
 recurring    Set to true if recurring. Set to false, or ommit if cart.none
 Other_Charactreristics
 Invalidates cache                 No
 Macro                             No
 Has end tag                       No
Tag expansion example:

   [save_cart mycart]
   [save_cart nickname=mycart recurring=1]
<! -- END OF EXPLANATION -->
Observation #6:  Because Interchange has been widely distributed as an "easy
to use" shopping cart, free with CPanel hosting providers, it's no fault of
the developers that this application causes such confusion and frustration
with "the rest of us".

Observation #7:  In six years using a computer on the internet (Windows),
using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, HTML, PHP, Excel, Office and
multitudes of other applications, some more powerful than Interchange, some
equal to Interchange in complexity, and many less impressive than
Interchange, I have spent more time in the past six months trying to get
what should be "simple" features of Interchange to work properly than I have
spent in the past six years with ALL of the applications, programs and
hardware installations I have worked with combined.

Conclusion:  See:  Observation #1.