Storga in the history of administrative computing
a tools approach

The story

In terms of the administrative management of companies, IT can be summed up in four major developments:

•

Databases

•	Word processing

•	The spreadsheet

•

Storga

About the dozens of 'revolutionary' products that appear every year

I start by removing those which are made up of a user interface with the mouse above a database. Basically, they propose to reduce the start-up cost, at the cost of a perimeter of efficiency and reduced scalability. However, we will see further that compared to the needs of the 21st century business, the limits of databases are not reduced to the high cost of initial implementation.

Dozens of revolutionary products, there is therefore ... nothing left, just a few great attempts, hardly more than one per decade, such as Hypercard or Lotus Notes which have embarked on the great adventure, but have not yet reached one. complete solution.

About so-called Agile development methods

In the 1990s and 2000s, at the same time as the free software wave, new so-called 'Agile' development methods appeared. The goal is to avoid having to establish complete specifications at the start of the project, which we generally do not know how to do, and which leads to a significant gap at the end of the project between the expectations and the system implemented. in place.
The operation by iteration (or incremental) that they recommend makes it possible to specify and learn as and when, so to better stick to user requests.
However, if the method seems to be progress, the use of classic development tools based on programming languages \u200b\u200band databases makes it difficult to apply in practice because a small change in specifications along the way can jeopardize a important part of the whole edifice at the data model and program level.
In this sense, Stoga is the first tool really well suited to agile development.

What is Storga changing

As a first approximation, Storga can be seen as the meeting of the word processor and the database, but we will see that in fact, it goes further by pushing the limits of the database.

Storga vs. databases

Unlike databases, Storga allows you to easily manage hundreds or even thousands of different types of records.
This solves three major problems:

•	No need to migrate old data with each new version of the application.

•

Allows the notion of an expert system envisaged in the 1970s, but which never took off for lack of an adequate support tool
Indeed, an expert system requires above all a number of types of files sufficient to be able to record without approximation the reality of the follow-up of a file, whereas a database imposes to simplify the twisted cases to make them fit in the boxes. existing ones, and therefore prohibits any relevant automatic analysis.

•	Suitable for inter-company data sharing.

Storga versus word processing

•	Same flexibility, ie the possibility of coding a meeting report as well as a shopping list or the construction schedule of a factory.

•	Powerful tool for reorganizing large volumes of data, while word processing pushes to keep the original organization (at the beginning, I know where it is, then I know it is somewhere, but I no longer know well where, and in the end I know more that it exists).

•	Possibility of structuring the data, of automatically calculating summary statements.

Storga versus the spreadsheet used as an organizational tool (as opposed to financial modeling)

•	The possibility of managing thousands of files, in multi user.

•	The calculation part has a structure which allows it to remain easily mastered over time.

Synthesis

	Database	Treatment text	Spreadsheet	Storga
Scope of effectiveness	✔	✘✘	✘	✔
Level of training required Quantity of specialists necessary for its implementation	✘	✔	✔	✔
Sustainable adaptability	✘	✔	✘	✔

▸ A more detailed benchmark

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Storga in the history of administrative computinga tools approach