>>>Al,
>>>
>>>>I think most would agree with all of this. About your first point, "solving problems", how much of our time these days is spent addressing business problems, versus "solving problems" related to/caused by/inherent to the complexity of the technology involved?
>>>
>>>Naturally, I can't speak for anyone but myself. I spend most of my time solving problems that involve the "business issues".
>>>
>>>As for the technology end, one thing I try to do when confronted with something I'm unfamilar with is to write code (objects) that I can use later in some way. For example, I once had to design an object that could interact with both Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel depending on what the user had installed. What I did was first determine what had to be done regardless of the server. Next, I identified specific utility that I needed to do with both. From here, I was able to both write the code and create the interface. Note that the syntax required for the actions to be done by the spreadsheets was still unknown to me at the time. I had, however, been able to create the interface for inter-acting with them. I then created a class defining the interface and two sub-classes of it, and then proceeded to get down to the "nuts and bolts" of make each behave as desired.
>>>
>>>Since then I've been able to re-use these classes, even though I don't have a clue as to what's going on in them since the interface tells me (by the method names) how the object should react.
>>>
>>>Is this what you were driving at?
>>
>>Well, it's certainly an elegant approach to the problem, from a technical standpoint. But I can't help noticing, nowhere do you say anything about what you were actually doing with the spreadsheets i.e. what your users were concerned about.
>
>In this instance, the spreadsheets were templates that were being populated with data and printed. These were diagrams used in accordance with our manufacturing process known as Warping. The format of the output was specified by the user's. One of the conditions, BTW was the most of the information had to be horizontally rather than vertically. This was one of the requirements that led to using a spreadsheet. Namely, this could be specified in the template.
>
>Since that time, the server class has been modified to allow us to pull data from spreadsheets to populate tables. Most of the information is in cross-tables and can easily exceed 50,000 records. We worked with the individual plant financial system managers (who maintain this information for costing purposes) to create a uniform layout for each of the 5 manufacturing facilities my group works with.
>
>This process was originally handled via DDE, but since Lotus beginning with 1-2-3 97 no longer supported it, this change was required.
>
>The system that this feeds generates costing information. Previously, it was done manually and took approximately one hour per estimate. Since the introduction of the system (1993 or 94), I think the record number of estimates processed by one person is in excess of 200.

So, if I read you right, this process speeds up the creation of estimates (I assume you mean 200/day(?) rather than 1 per hour), and provides information necessary for production if/when the estimate becomes a job?