Training

Chad,

Is your shop going to use Xlates or Tcl for Transformations?

Does it primarily use the engine toolset for integrations or does it use Tcl at times (maybe mostly) instead of some of the Cloverleaf toolset?

If your shop will be primarily Tcl then any Tcl class which attempts to relate Tcl to Cloverleaf (and I don’t know if the class you reference does that) will be of more use.

On the other hand, if you will be using Tcl primarily to augment the engine and do things not provided for in the engine or its add-ons and use primarily Xlates for transformation, then the Tcl training will be helpful but there is more to know.

Just my .02 cents.

For example, I have been working with Cloverleaf since 1995 and I have not written a lot of Tcl nor needed to.

Hi Chad,

I have also worked with Cloverleaf for quite awhile and accomplish most challenges using creative xlates, brief tcl and the other tools available within those xlates.  When it’s been necessary to use tcl, I have been grateful for what has been shared on this site.

If two people have the same toolbox but use different tools from it to accomplish a task, it does not mean that either is wrong.  If the task is completed using minimal resources and is maintained, either one is correct.

It depends on what you are comfortable doing.   I agree that is not wise to bypass Xlate altogether with Tcl,  But it is also not wise to create a non-maintainable mismash to force it though Xlate.  However, with routine copy, modification and looping, Xlate is much easier to maintain and modify.

Remember, at least 70 percent  of the life cycle cost will be in maintenance.  And it will not always be maintained by you.

Just my $0.02 worth

To expand a bit on Charlie’s toolbox reference…

We all have access to the same tools, but most of us are more comfortable with that one special tool – the one we seem to use all the time.

We think “I should try out that other tool sometime”… but never get there because we don’t understand, don’t have the time, or more likely both.  So, it sits on the shelf.

One of the issues I hear from Chad’s original post is one of cost.  It’s expensive to get Cloverleaf training.  While training might give us a jump start on using some of those tools, we don’t all have travel/training budgets to spend $5000 on a Tcl class, for example.  And, if the training is not perceived to be of the very highest value, that makes it a pretty tough sell.

Even if we assume that all of us can afford to get all of the Cloverleaf training available from Infor, there is so much more to learn beyond that.

Collectively, as a group, we have a huge amount of expertise that spans the entirety of Cloverleaf.  What would you all think about putting together some mentoring sessions – maybe one per month – to share our expertise?

I have a couple decades of Tcl experience I can share.  I know there’s plenty the rest of you can teach me…

I’m thinking it’s hard to even get started in 15 minutes, but I’m open to discussion.