Re: SQLite for contacts and relations to Org - Re: contact management in emacs

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Robert Weiner <rsw@gnu.org> [2022-10-11 01:31]:
> 1. Although I understand you do a great many things with your
> database-backed Hyperscope system and I work with RDBMSes every day, I
> don't really see great value in what you have shown in the context of
> contact management when compared to the already existing HyRolo or
> org-contacts.  We can easily add, delete, import and export contacts, we
> just follow very simple conventions in creating our contacts.  We can
> easily email contact files and have people apply text processing tools to
> them, so it would help if you just showed examples of something that Emacs
> really lacks before suggesting wrapping everything into a database system,
> as I know you are a very smart guy.

For org-contacts, I have nothing to say, as that is as limited as it
can be. 

When anyway structured information such as people names, properties,
their communication lines, addresses are in the separate database like
SQLite, that fact liberates information from single software like
HyRolo, and allows users to access, process information freely with
any programming languages and plethora of variety of tools for
inspection, analysis, exports, and sharing of such information.

For HyRolo, that is text. One cannot build upon it.

I am constantly sending SMS from Emacs and importing SMS from mobile
phones to contacts. When I send SMS I want to see which SMS was sent
and received by which contact at what time, by which phone number. It
is something not imaginable with text files. Similar is with
information sent to people, how am I supposed to know what information
I have sent, what not. There is no automated tracking in text files
like HyRolo. It is one example among way too many.

Adding properties to people, objects, it is much easier by using
selection that one can click onto, or use arrows, or just C-p for
previous one. Rather that, then writing with hand each time, error
prone, some skills of people in order to find people by skills.

Skill like "C programmer" I would need to add too many times and then
use find by regexp. 

All good and find, but not scalable. Of course that I have use text
files long ago to store contacts, but that was 28 years ago. I have
now 240106 entries of people and their groups.

Unspoken of marketing campaign, imagine when I paid $73 and got in 23
hours 1200+ leads for recruitment in specific sector. How would I
enter them in HyRolo? Automate some web server program to add them in
similar fashion like Org heading. It could work. But then how could I
send to those people in ordered fashion series of 3-10 training emails
that automates the process of recruitment and selection? Would HyRolo
help me track who received what at what time? There is no foundation
for such features in text files.

> 2. Years ago as part of my stab at an Emacs-based IDE, InfoDock (find it on
> Sourceforge),

Is it this one?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/infodock/

I cannot see how to start anything with it. Do you have screenshots?

> I also wrote an in-memory, file-based but fully relational database.
> The main point of which was to demonstrate direct manipulation
> querying of relational tables via simple mouse clicks/key presses on
> screen.  For simple queries, I found this very powerful and dirt
> simple for people to do.  If that were of interest, someone could
> take the existing code under infodock/id-lisp/rdb and interface it
> to SQLite pretty easily I would expect and then you would have an
> interesting Emacs interface without having to master SQL for basic
> table analysis.

Is it this one?

lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/                  
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/make-path         
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/wakeup            
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/profile           
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/make-docfile      
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/digest-doc        
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/sorted-doc        
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/movemail          
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/cvtmail           
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/fakemail          
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/yow               
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/hexl              
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/gnuserv           
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/mmencode          
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/rcs2log           
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/vcdiff            
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/gzip-el.sh        
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/add-big-package.sh
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/config.values     
lib/infodock-4.0.8/i486-pc-sysv5/DOC               
bin/i386-intel-sco7/                               
bin/i386-intel-sco7/etags                          
bin/i386-intel-sco7/ctags                          
bin/i386-intel-sco7/b2m                            
bin/i386-intel-sco7/gnuclient                      
bin/i386-intel-sco7/ootags                         
bin/i386-intel-sco7/rcs-checkin                    
bin/i386-intel-sco7/pstogif                        
bin/i386-intel-sco7/gnudoit                        
bin/i386-intel-sco7/gnuattach                      
bin/i386-intel-sco7/infodock-4.0.8                 
bin/i386-intel-sco7/infodock --> infodock-4.0.8    

-- 
Jean

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