FoxPro

[naiveprogrammer]

Can anyone tell me more about FoxPro verses Access? I'm wondering which app
is better as far as capablities. ANY info would be great!

Thanks.

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Programmer,

A lot depends on what you are trying to do, how much data you will have,
number of users, your performance needs, etc. Do you have any experience in
either Access or Visual FoxPro? Which version of FoxPro or Access do you
intend to use for your development? What back end would you be using - Fox
tables, MDB, or MSDE/SQL Server? Note that you can use Access and Visual
FoxPro as a front end to any of those data stores.

Post back with more details.

 

[naiveprogrammer]

Hi! Thanks for replying!

My company went ahead and bought FoxPro. So now I'm needing to learn about
how to use it.

I have a lot of experience with Access. I've worked with Access for several
years now. I'll be using FoxPro tables as my back end info now. Do you have
ANY info that I can get my hands on for beginners for FoxPro? I'm not
learning it as fast as I would like to and the searches on books have turned
up as not so great results so far. I would like to find something along the
lines of FoxPro for dummies (they don't have it though) so I can learn the
basics for now to get started.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Programmer,

Go to www.hentzenwerke.com and get "The Fundamentals" and "Effective
Techniques." Although these books target VF6, at your level they will be
great and everything in those books still applies to VFP9 (the current
version).

There are FoxPro newsgroups on this same news server, so you'll want to post
questions in those groups to get the best answers.

You might also like the UniversalThread. (www.universalthread.com) The UT is
a web-based message board with several years of searchable archives. Basic
membership is free, but if you want premiums such as the ability to search
the archives you can buy a membership. The UT is kind of unique in that
people have posted their pictures and there is a "Chatter" section where
you're free to discuss other topics, so you feel more like you're
interacting with people rather than just a computer. There's also a large
library of code examples and utilities, and these are free to download and
use.

 

[still_looking]

Foxpro scales very nicely (I wrote an app that hundreds of users used
simultaneously) without any problem and Foxpro can handle very large data
sets very quickly (probably the fastes db on the market) but it does not have
the kind of features that SQL Server or Oracle have.

Foxpro has the best debugger of almost any language(its very easy to save
all the variables, their values, the environment variables and what files are
open and where they are and what indices are active) and it is a great
language.

For whatever reason it has been losing market share (I know I am going to
get flamed for saying this) but it is fading. Whenever MS hints that it is
going to pull the plug on it there is such an uproar that MS announces that
everyone was mistaken... Outside large companies there are many apps written
in Foxpro doing just fine.

Ignore the object portions of Foxpro and you can create very powerful,
useful, apps quickly.

still_looking

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Still_Looking,

Foxpro scales very nicely .... but it does not have
the kind of features that SQL Server or Oracle have.

Specifically, the security features and the ability to handle "huge" data
sets.

Foxpro has the best debugger of almost any language...
Definitely!

....Whenever MS hints that it is
going to pull the plug on it there is such an uproar that MS announces
that
everyone was mistaken...

I've never heard MSFT announce that it was going to pull the plug, but the
Fox community (your "everyone") is a strong and tightly knit group and the
interaction between the Fox development team at Microsoft and the user
community is very strong. At Microsoft, other product groups are envious of
this.

Ignore the object portions of Foxpro and you can create very powerful,
useful, apps quickly.

I'm really not sure what you mean here.

 

[still_looking]

Oracle and SQL server have very powerful logging and rollback features.

I was at a large conference of small business owners addressed by Steve
Ballmer and when someone asked why VFP seemed to have been left out from
Visual Studio .Net (this was around four years ago) the place (an hotel with
several hundred OEMs) went nuts. Ballmer quickly assured the crowd that
even though there were no announced plans it would reappear. But it was
clear that MS was testing the waters as to how it could stop the product.

I just checked on DICE for nationwide jobs:
Foxpro - 93 jobs
Delphi - 160
VB.Net - 2,740
(vba OR "visual basic" OR vb) - 4,748
C++ - 6,394
Java - 11,236
C# - 3,178
Fortran - 206

A language with only 93 jobs compared to the others is not a growing
language. Yes the other groups envy Foxpro (if they know about it) but very
few people are writing new apps in Foxpro. Its possible it will come back
but its like waiting for Elvis.

The language has object features but outside of character development I
would suggest that the user write structured code and try to ignore writing
object oriented code. I know that one has to access objects but I would avoid
creating objects in Foxpro as much as possible if one is to write code and
get it out the door. (boy am I going to get flamed on this!)

The reason that there is such a tight relationship between Foxpro and the
users is that on the Foxpro side the same developers who created the language
went to Microsoft when MS bought it and I guess they still, by and large
still work on it. The programmer community is small and I guess they all know
each other. What this means is that the sooner the original writer moves on
to language with a future the better it is for the company he is with and for
his own professional career.

still looking

 

[still_looking]

I reread the thread and noticed that there is no hint as to to sex of the
original writer. I mistakenly wrote "he" but did not try to imply anything by
that.....
still_looking

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

It sounds like Steve Ballmer was mis-informed.

Visual FoxPro 7 was removed from Visual Studio 7 (VS.NET) at the request of
the FoxPro community. (We actually sent in votes.) That way VFP could have
it's own budget and ship schedule.

VFP7 was the first live Microsoft developer tool to both publish and consume
web services (RTM 29-Sep-01). VS7 did not RTM until 15-Apr-02. Since then
the VFP team has released two more versions (VFP8, VFP9 on 22-Dec-04) while
the VS group released an updated version (1.1) on 10-Jul-03 and VS 2.0 is
due to be released in early November, 2005.

Perhaps you don't understand object-oriented programming. Yes, it takes a
little time to develop a "framework" of class libraries (a generic login
form, for example, and these can be purchased from third-parties).

Say you had a whole app written with 1000 text boxes all through 100 forms.
Say the customer wanted the font in every one of them changed from Courier
New to Lucida Console. What would you do? What I'd do is go to my base
TextBox class and change the font, then recompile the project. In less than
10 minutes I'd have a satisfied customer.

 

[still_looking]

You mean to say that the Foxpro community decided to opt out of VS.Net and
is proud of having done that. So how well is Foxpro integrated with the VS
Studio Framework? Are you going to say it is independent and fully
integrated? In other words I can call any function to any language in VS
without changing the data types - can I do that with Foxpro 9 and the other
languages in VS.Net? The whole point of VS.Net is that everyone would share
classes and can code in any language on a single project.

I know what a class is and the only area that I have seen real reuse is in
screen objects (such as a password field). I believe that structured
programming can achieve all of the advantages of classes with much fewer
problems then writing classes.

In teams everyone ends up redefining, instead of, reusing common classes.
When I had to maintain/update class driven code (written by an individual) it
took me months to get a handle on all the classes.

If you can (as an MVP... .) try to get source code from MS. Even if they use
a C++ compiler almost all of the code in their products are staight C. There
is very little use of inheritance, polymorphism in the actual code. I
understand that there is an effort that all their products will be
(re)written in C# but based on what I have seen so far I bet that the code is
much more likely to be C code and hack filled. They seem to have a need to
get working products out the door.

If only everyone drove within the speed limit wouldn't the world be a much
better place?

still_looking

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

You mean to say that the Foxpro community decided to opt out of VS.Net and
is proud of having done that. So how well is Foxpro integrated with the VS
Studio Framework? Are you going to say it is independent and fully
integrated? In other words I can call any function to any language in VS
without changing the data types - can I do that with Foxpro 9 and the
other
languages in VS.Net? The whole point of VS.Net is that everyone would
share
classes and can code in any language on a single project.

Visual FoxPro does not compile to the .NET framework. It doesn't "share
classes" with .NET languages, although there are plans for greater
interoperability between VFP and .NET in the future. It really was never
part of the .NET world.

I know what a class is and the only area that I have seen real reuse is in
screen objects (such as a password field). ....

I guess you haven't seen the classes and inheritance structures I've seen.
They're very powerful.

In teams everyone ends up redefining, instead of, reusing common classes.

Not where I come from.

When I had to maintain/update class driven code (written by an individual)
it
took me months to get a handle on all the classes.

Don't blame a good programming practice for bad code written by an unskilled
programmer.

If you can (as an MVP... .) try to get source code from MS. Even if they
use
a C++ compiler almost all of the code in their products are staight C.
There
is very little use of inheritance, polymorphism in the actual code.

Hmmm. When you look at the source code that ships with VFP, code for the
Toolbox for example, it's heavily object-oriented and relies greatly on
inheritance for it's power. I took apart the VFP Toolbox code and wrote 3
articles for "FoxPro Advisor" magazine describing how to extend the Toolbox
code to add your own functionality. Other developers have done similarly
with modules such as the VFP Task Pane.

 

[still_looking]

I still stand by what I said about classes - the only widespread consistent
use of objects is in screen objects. There are very intelligent,
exprerienced, programmers capable of creating and using objects but such
people are few and far between - so what is the point of a technology that is
not widely used and whose benefits are more theoretical then practical.

But the whole point of this series of notes is what the original poster
should do? The person asked about Foxpro and you pointed out the Foxpro is
not part of VS.Net. The person will spend a great amount of time learning a
tool that is, (even though it has a core of really good programmers), out of
the mainstream.

Who will maintain the code that this person will produce? How will it
interact with the new versions of Windows and all the other new technology?
Will MS continue to commit resources to a tool used by fewer and fewer
customers. It is like the followers of VAX OS, a very stable, powerful OS
that runs VAX (Dec computer) machines. It could come back (and Elvis appear
soon at the Rose Bowl) but I would invest the 1,000 -2,000 hours that it
takes to be really proficent in Foxpro to learn C# or VB.Net.

still_looking

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

.......There are very intelligent,
exprerienced, programmers capable of creating and using objects but such
people are few and far between - so what is the point of a technology that
is
not widely used and whose benefits are more theoretical then practical.

The benefits _are_ practical. Being able to change the font on 10,000 text
boxes in a few minutes sounds practical to me.

But the whole point of this series of notes is what the original poster
should do?

The OPs company had just bought Visual FoxPro and he said he needed to learn
how to use it. I never said that he should or shouldn't use VFP or Access or
any other development tool for that matter.

The person asked about Foxpro and you pointed out the Foxpro is
not part of VS.Net.

Well, you're right that he asked about FoxPro but he never mentioned .NET at
all. _You_ did. You first brought it up in your post on June 17.

The person will spend a great amount of time learning a
tool that is, (even though it has a core of really good programmers), out
of
the mainstream.

That's a valid point. However, the OP's "company" bought VFP, for whatever
reason. It didn't appear to be his choice. He could easily spend hours
learning VB.NET or C# or even Java or Perl but if that's not what his
company is using then his time may not be well-spent.

Who will maintain the code that this person will produce? How will it
interact with the new versions of Windows and all the other new
technology?
Will MS continue to commit resources ......

I agree that these are valid issues when choosing a new development tool.
Although the OP can offer an opinion it's probably his company's call on
these issues.

......I would invest the 1,000 -2,000 hours that it
takes to be really proficent in Foxpro to learn C# or VB.Net.

It's possible that I would make the same call. Again, the OP wasn't asking
whether he _should_ learn VFP, but was asking for resources to help a
beginner get started, given that the development tool was chosen for him and
it happened to be Visual FoxPro.

 

[still_looking]

Actually the person asked about Access Versus Foxpro and I am encourging the
person to start with VB.Net for all the reasons I enumerated in the previous
notes. If the user can he, or she, can they should get the beta of Visual
Studio .Net 2005 - its really nice.

still_looking

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

As I said before, I might make the same recommendation but as far as I know
the choice had been made by someone else and the OP was required to use VFP
at his job. Therefore he needed to learn VFP.