Originally Posted by Darlal
My UI programming skills are pretty much nonexistant in terms of webforms, but I work as a databases (typically access) design consultant in my free time so that part of the project is totally possible. I've really been feeling the limitations of excel with this project, so if there is support for moving to a more robust format I'd be totally for it.
Advantages:
a) eventual merging of pf's dps caculator with gear optimization
b) easier to follow what's happening behind the scenes
c) vastly superior UI
d) real modeling options
Disadvantages:
a) less universal than a spreadsheet
b) real coding involved
c) requires more community support
Anyway, I'd like to hear what people think.
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I'm not sure I'd actually set it up as a webform - it's certainly an option, but I was originially thinking in terms of a program that you'd download and run locally - although that would require either bundling with a database program (probably sqlite) or getting by without a database per se (which would probably be possible if a bit messy). Running it as a webform would defenitely have some advantages in terms of setup, although also would require resolving issues of hosting and whatever.
I assume by advantage A you're referring to the ability to support the full range of specs and abilities? I'd personally be reinclined to redo all the calculations from scratch rather than using his particular formulas, to take full advantage of the flexibility that actual code gives you. That's to some extent what I was doing here, but the nature of the spreadsheet is such that I had to limit myself to a small slice of rogue-dom. With the power of actually programming behind it, it would be straightforward to have calculations at or above this level of detail with all possible specs - although it'd take some time to code.
Regarding the disadvantages: I don't think a) wouldn't really be a problem; we've already started to run into compatability issues with spreadsheets due to the differences between Excel and OpenOffice; I think getting to the same level of compatability would be pretty doable. A webform would certainly be able to do as well, and even a locally run program could be structured to work on most flavors of Windows and MacOS with relative ease. Point b) is something of a concern - it would take some time to put such a tool together, but it sounds like we've already found a couple people willing to work on the back-end; if we could find some people to write the front-end this might be possible.