I was recently asked about whether or not the code from a market test Alpha should continue on into the offering. I don’t know the answer, but here’s my thoughts. Intuit doesn’t have a doctrine that I know of, just some history. Prototype code is almost never used in a commercial launch, but Alpha versions and such have gone on to be full products. Quicken and QuickBooks were retooled after about the third version. My own general view is that if the code is reasonably well done, there’s no reason you can’t continue with it, using an emergent architecture method. Too many offerings have been sidelined by trying to get the architecture “right” the first time. But if the code seems untenable now, it might be a good idea to start afresh on it. My prototype version of Keyword Search would never have worked in a real product, so it was tossed before I even started on a publishable version. Echominder was a prototype that turned into a launch, and we started down the retooling path after a few months. It probably would have been a better product if we had started over on it before launch. Engineer “excitement” can also be a factor - if a group is excited about a recoding, you can get a much more engaged team, and better results - that’s what happened with Intuit Labs - the innovation.intuit.com codebase was tossed out, and it’s a better product, with faster iteration potential, than it would have been otherwise. So… use your instincts, don’t over-architect, and take the time if it’s necessary. Don’t take the time if it isn’t.
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I posted to intuitlabs.com
Throw away your code?
http://intuitlabs.com/blog/archive/2009/05/throw-away-your-code/
May 5 2009, 11:30pm | Comments »
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I posted to intuitlabs.com
Keyword Search on Windows Vista
http://intuitlabs.com/blog/archive/2009/03/keyword-search-on-windows-vista/
When Keyword Search installs, it finds every version of QuickBooks that you might have on your computer and installs the files into each one. It is designed to automatically work with every install of QuickBooks, but it doesn’t always succeed. The problem is that only one of those files it installed can be “active” at any one time, and whichever QuickBooks you are running - that’s the keysearch file that must be “active”. There’s a registration batch file included in the installation called “KeySearchRegister.bat”. It contains the commands needed to activate a particular install path. In Vista though, you can’t just double click it, and running it as administrator probably won’t work either. First, exit QuickBooks. Then click the Windows start menu icon and go to the All Programs/Accessories. Right click the Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. Then you’ll have to browse to the folder containing the KeySearchRegister.bat file, something like cd c:\program files\intuit\quickbooks - make sure it is the proper folder for the particular QuickBooks installation that you are really using. Then run the register file - c:>keysearchregister.bat That will pop up a couple of messages indicating the registration succeeded. Re-run QuickBooks and Keyword Search should work. - Matt H
- Tags:
- Uncategorized
- Keyword Search
- Vista
March 5 2009, 10:27am | Comments »
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I posted to intuitlabs.com
New Keyword Search for the Canada Multi-Currency Edition
http://intuitlabs.com/blog/archive/2009/02/new-keyword-search-for-the-canada-multi-currency-edition/
I’ve created a new version of Keyword Search that should work with the Canadian Multi-Currency edition. There are some things about that version that were tricky. First, the only version of QB you can have on your system is the CA Multi-currency. Other versions of QB interfere with the components used to access QB data (the QuickBooks SDK). Second, you’ll need to install the QuickBooks CA Multi-currency SDK (Software Development Kit) from Intuit. Download and install SDK Finally, there are two types of data searched in the regular Keyword Search that aren’t available to the CA Multi-Currency edition: Item Receipts and Sales Orders. Download and install Keyword Search for Canada Multi-Currency QuickBooks Let me know how it works for you, and I’ll put it up on the regular Keyword Search download page. I’m also planning to soon release a version that works with the Canadian (regular) and United Kingdom versions of QuickBooks. - Matt
February 12 2009, 11:33am | Comments »
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