I am a retired business owner/manager with 400 staff in 16 branches. I have a degree in computer science from 1970 and during my business managing days I chose to spend about 1/3 of my time on marketing issues and extracting customer and operational data from our relational database. The relational data base started as PICK systems and then changed to RealityX. Very powerful; very flexible. No fixed data fields or number of records.

I managed (as in I want 99.9% up time. How are you going to do that IT staff of 2 for 120 registered users?). RealityX is an extremely powerful data base. We could analyze customers by using simple statements like LIST CUSTOMER.MASTER IF NAME EQ “[SMITH]” TOTAL REVENUE TOTAL MARGIN TOTAL INVOICE.COUNT SORT-BY NAME.

I still use RealityX (which runs on a sun solaris platform for the accounting needs of companies i am in the process of winding up.

In spite of my computer degree, I am not at all technical. I have a challenge installing a new printer on my MAC. I understand the concepts and am vaguely familier with bits and bytes and packets.

My main interest in XWIKI is to use it as a collaborative way to promote direct democracy principals in our local city. Hence web pages, comments and the rights management features of XWIKI are important. In addition the quick notification features are crucial in helping keep users connected to the project.

I find most of XWIKI documentation seems to be complete, however mostly above my knowledge skills and abilities. The documentation also seems to be written by developers who really do not have empathy or understanding of users like myself who just want to know what box to tick in order to use the feature.