PDF storage software recommendations?

[Bill Tillman]

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:31:15 -0700
From: Charlie Kester <corky1951 at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Message-ID: <20100618063115.GA57196 at comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

On Thu 17 Jun 2010 at 19:57:03 PDT Polytropon wrote:
>
>Maybe my answer will sound "low level", but it works - REALLY works -
>and works with mostly every kind of data.
>
>It's good to see someone recommending a true Unix-style solution.  :)

Here, here.  I too love simple text files. With the speed of today's computers it's not impractical to use text files. And something like you suggest with awk I think would work....except for one major thing. When building a database like this you usually have to build an interface that normal users will work with. And something that I could use versus something the other people in the office could use are often worlds apart. I once wrote a program to do linear optimization for cutting metal parts from stock lengths. For me it was a simple block of code about 30-40 lines as I recall. The other guys in the warehouse saw it and told the boss they wanted it too. He then instructed me to expand it so the common users could work with it. Well 2 months later and about another 400 lines of code to make it user friendly we finally had something. So as I see it the interface for other "not so tech-savvy" users will be the trouble with this approach. But put me
 down for a vote on this method using simple text files and awk.
 
We have a Windows based system at my current job which uses FileMaker Pro. It's amazing what we can do with this and it's like having a gigantic electronic filing cabinet. It's pricey and it took the IT guys some time to build it but it does do some fantastic things in keeping tons of files organized, indexed and searchable. But I'd like to try my hand at building something with text files and awk.