Ideas/Visio

[andrewducker]

I can always tell when I'm feeling better, because I have the urge to write. When I'm tired or ill nothing seems interesting enough to write about - it's all just the usual mess. When I'm feeling well and rested there are at least 20 things a day that form the core of an idea for something.

For instance, today Stephen had a small Visio problem. He got Greg to give him a quick hand with it, but I wandered past him a few minutes later and asked him what it was. This is because I've been using Visio on and off since almost the first version. It's a lovely program that allows you to produce and change charts incredibly easily, and while it still has the occasional niggle in laying things out, generally speaking it's a lovely piece of kit.

But it's one of those things that I've always felt I wasn't getting nearly enough out of. As far as I can tell you can use Visio to plan your databases and then create them automatically. You can use it to map out your network through auto-discovery. It can be used with add-ons to produce UML and help with program-design. All I use it for is to do flow-charts. Which it's great for, but I'm always left feeling that I'm using a rocket engine to cook sausages over, when it could be flying me to the moon.

Comments

[cx650.livejournal.com]

Your first paragraph fits my feelings pretty damn tight. Guess why I've not posted for a while.
I don't like to write about how bad I'm feeling because I don't want to bore people. Am I wrong? Do I need to discuss these things more?

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I've recently moved from being a network geek to doing more of a business processy/management type job and it was a big surpriser to me to learn that people use Visio for things other than network maps.

[andrewducker]

I don't like to write about how bad I'm feeling because I don't want to bore people. Am I wrong? Do I need to discuss these things more?

_need_? Not for me to say. You should know by now whether talking about it helps you or not.

But boring people? The hell with that - it's your bloody journal, talk about whatever the hell you want. If people get bored, they can skip-read.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

You *could* use Visio to design databases. But it is intensely irritating, I find. I HATE how you can't line up the relationship lines with exact attributes, for example. Any anything that automatically writes DB code is never ideal. You think it's cool but you end up handcoding anyway cos it never quite does what you want.

DB Artisan (good if you use multiple brands of database) and ERWin (ridiculously expensive) are, IMHO, more worth looking at for DB design.