foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

SPS: State of the Language Address.

Ken Levy shifts. Craig Berntson re-emphasizes (I swear such a word exists) his stand. As for me, I’d like to look at the bright side.

Scott Scovell on Visual FoxPro.

For those programmer fathers out there, or humans who support someone or our very selves to live, which I think most of us do… we code not just for the challenge or for that ever-quench-the-thirst desire to solve things that tend to be abstract in an abstract way disguised in the form of for-loops, bits and 0101010001001s.

We code for food.

We may be directly solving and creating systems, thinking of our clients needs but in the cubicle filled workplace of our minds, there is that space in the server room inside our craniums exclusively reserved for our needs, our families’ needs and/or our children needs.

(Feel free to include your dog and your goldfish. (My pet tiger and pterodactyl are self-sustaining though.))

But of course, there are also humans who are, let’s say for the purpose of discussion… are from the start of their lives, financially and materially lucky. Almost everything are laid down at their feet.

Now I’m not generalizing on the next line, but some of these lovely humans tend to lack ‘TheDrive’. Again I am not generalizing all of them. It’s just that time and time again I seem to encounter and interact with some of them seeing sparks of that tendency. I mean the tendency to lack TheDrive.

If little forces lesser than TheForce tend to spoil someone or something with resources, it chips at parts of the inherent little drives that strive beneath, thus dissolving some good bits of the output.

When the Wachowski was on a tight budget, they produced one of the best sci-fi, mind-challenging movies of all time, The (first) Matrix. Fast forward almost three years later, they have huge resources to produce bloated Matrix follow-ups.

(Not that I don’t like them, they are major vfx eye-candies and there are still sparks of gems here and there (not to mention Monica), but they fade in comparison to the potential of what the first installment has to offer.)

Some probably will include George Lucas and Star Wars in this list, but hey… the third episode was probably enough to save what the first two episodes lack (Well at least the first half of the third episode).

In a way, FoxPro belongs to that make the most of what we have list.

Not only is it a good resource-friendly product, it creates database applications, which if properly used, makes use of existing resources, however scarce they may seem… efficiently.

Unlike other PLs that are so spoiled, bloated, hogs too much memory and requires system requirements above the roof… FoxPro uses what it really needs.

(There goes Avatar and Beakman yelling ‘We know where this part is heading!’ But trust me it didn’t started that way.)

I am supposed to update a link to Mike Lewis’ article on How to install updated EXE files without forcing users to log out of your application which I blogged exactly two years ago… but decided to post a new one because there’s more FoxSTUFF from that site since the last time I checked.

Vizkorov… [a] Time travels fast [b] I really need to finish that FoxPro snippets/articles site links/directory I started two years ago and [c] VFP is on it’s 9th version yet you can still use a lot of resources that were created before… and of course there are tons of ‘shortcuts’ already for those workarounds you are using a decade or so ago.

Craig Bailey: The Visual FoxPro Tipping Point. (via Akselsoft)

Hosting a .NET ActiveX Control in Visual FoxPro and Registering the .NET ActiveX from SPS.

http://del.icio.us/TAG/VFP.

Admit it… you missed me.

Andrew reacts and posted a link to this tool . (Software tools and applications, and software in general should be included in the list of humanity’s greatest inventions, don’t you think?)

A couple of client visits and a kiddie party after posting that blog, I can’t seem to recall very well the reasoning behind those thoughts. Probably I was also thinking fast instead of deep. (Using .or. instead of .and.)

Or probably I had encountered too many humans already who are too adept at using their thought faculties to think of excuses at the snap of a finger. The narrow minded ones with that this-can’t-be-done attitude. Firing up one too many excuse before even attempting.

[VFP.zealot.shield.enable = .T.]

Include the VFP-is-dead barkers, who without thinking lash out at VFP before trying it out or actually using it.

[VFP.zealot.shield.enable = .F.]

Anyway… will work first and blog later. I’ve been out of the office for two straight days already… [“,]

Ken Levy’s Fox half-life factor… er… Letter from the Editor (December 2005) released.

Along with the Visual FoxPro 9.0 Service Pack 1.

VFP SP2 is coming up, SednaX and the updated XSource.zip.

Who said we were an endangered species again..?

We’re on a roll today.

Andrew MacNeill: How misinformation feeds FoxPro myths.

“It’s not about the product – it’s about the DESIGN!!!”

Indeed… indeed.

The problem with Visual FoxPro (or any RAD tool for that matter) is because they’re easy to use, some irresponsible programmers fire up wizards and tools to create applications without proper planning.

PLAN… plan plan… things on paper. Create solutions that will cater not just to the immediate need for this month, or this year… but to the future.

I usually spend two weeks (and sometimes even more) in the planning phase which includes the creation of the database structures and overall flow.

And in more than one instance, I’ve even brought some folded papers in my wallet so I can retrieve things easily if ever an idea or a possible problem pops into my mind.

Back in my previous workplace, we even brainstorm on things like this. Every programmer shares his input while the others fire up possible scenarios and problems.

As for the misinformation part, the world holds too much consultants and IT specialists already, who for the sake of discussion, let’s say are powered with the latest processor chips in their brains.

They think fast.

Too fast.

In this field of software development, thinking deeply is much preferred.

Andy Kramek: Handling NULL values in VFP.

Mary Jo Foley: FoxPro Not an Endangered Species.

The aliens love you, Mary Jo!

Learning VFP 102: Scope and more.

The FoxPro Show 034.

The FoxPro Show 033: Conferences and an Interview with Tamar Granor.

Thank you very much for the mention and the kind words, Andrew.

Last week, Tuesday evening to be precise, a client called us. It was a rushed call, the line was not that clear too but from what I heard at that time, she wanted us to create a program which is due by Friday.

Qs and I have done two database projects for this client already, so I thought it was just a simple module modification, a new report perhaps, or probably help on a PowerPoint presentation or something.

But still, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, perhaps they really want a new database program.

A database program that needs to be completed in, at the most, two days.

When the client called us again during lunch of the following day, somehow worried that we haven’t arrived yet (we scheduled to visit around 3PM), I was thinking this must really not be a database program because database projects usually needs at least six months to be completed. (Well, at least in my case (some even years))

Three hours later, we found out that indeed the client wants us to create a ‘simple’ POS-type database program that will record the sales of their yearly three day bazaar.

It was indeed a database program.

The client did understand the situation and requested just the ‘basic’ modules. The things that can fit in that amount of time.

In times like this it is the ‘challenge’ that drives (and blinds) us usually.

We have some developed data entry engines already, and of course Visual FoxPro as a tool by our side.

Now at this point, I failed to mention that an alien activated my wisdom tooth 27 hours earlier. I was not feeling that well, so qs, my loving-wifey-who’s-been-using-VFP-for-a-year-already, decided to tackle this two day project.

I on the other hand if strength permits, would do the reports.

After almost a couple of sleepless nights, data transfers here and there on our computers (we don’t have that sourcevault/core-related stuff yet), at 5PM the next day, we were installing the basic modules in the client’s site.

Installed. Demo-ed. User test drive and every thing went smoothly except for one child database where I forgot to set filter to !deleted().

But aside from that the test went smoothly.

The next day I decided to visit the client early to oversee things. Thank heavens, after 90 transactions, the program was running well. I even interrupted to install a minor update, observed afterwards and things were still working perfectly.

There’s that joy a programmer/developer experiences when he sees his work at being used. I see buyers holding the print-outs and I’m having that same feeling I felt just like the first time a database program of mine was used in the university I worked in seven years ago.

How I wish qs was there that morning because for some reason she wasn’t able to accompany me. She was scheduled to visit the next day.

Now here’s the funny part.

It was around 9:30AM when I decided to go home. When I arrived, qs and her grandmother and her parents wanted to visit the bazaar. So I decided to come along.

(The client’s three hectare community is just three city blocks away.)

When we arrived, I decided to stay outside while qs is savoring that ‘my-database-program-is-running-running’ feeling.

After 30 minutes or so, qs and her parents and grandmother were in line to pay. There were three customers before them paying.

Now take note that at this point the program never crashed yet.

Three customers completed the transactions… print went well… no error.

Qsez dad and mom paid. Zoom the printer printed nicely.

… and now it is qsez turn to pay, she handed the goods to be recorded and…

Guess what… the database program crashed for the first time.

It worked smoothly during our test drive, the client’s test drive, from 7:30AM to 10AM up to the point where qs was the one paying.

The client who was also operating the database program even informed the swarming customers… ‘Naglalambing ang program kasi siya ang may gawa.’ (I can’t translate things exactly but partially it means that the program is being affectionate to its creator… something like that.)

Three minutes later we found out that the cause was a loose printer cable connection.

Call it coincidence, call it fate, baptism by fire… (I have my own experience in my old workplace (program crashes for no obvious logical reason + customers swarming and piling up).

Call it what you want… but I strongly believe, the aliens have something to do with it.

GOOGLE-Mart. Sam Walton taught Google more about how to dominate the internet than Microsoft ever did.

Yeah. Even the aliens are shifting sides.

Most of my FoxPro feeds are pointing to this news.

Loyalty to Visual FoxPro: the SednaX Generation. (via Aksel Solutions)

The FoxPro developer community, albeit small, is consistently more vociferous, demanding, passionate, cohesive, and loyal than any other community of practice I have observed. The FoxPro community presents itself as a single, well-defined customer for which, compared to many other developer tools communities (e.g., VB and C#), it is relatively easy to identify and prioritize feature needs.

Here’s the link to the SednaX Project. I wonder what the ‘X’ stands for..?

I was archiving the access logs of Pixelcatalyst.Lair and Foxpro.catalyst while The FoxPro Show 024 was playing once again in the background.

I did hint a while back that I’ll be posting something TFPS024 related. The FoxPro Show 25 came out, then 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31… a couple of Mondays podcasts were also released and after a month, I’m still here unable to scribble those buffered thoughts.

OzFoxRocks even went online a couple of weeks ago.

So I was thinking it was about time I ‘unbuffer‘ those buffered thoughts which a couple of minutes ago are being electrocuted by strange toon-porn infested neurons.

There’s a problem though with unbufferring a month old casing of thoughts. The mind-to-fingertips-to-keyboard coordination just won’t work smoothly.

Though I remember most things discussed in the show, I would like to double check on one detail.

Now there’s a difference too, when you’re working, archiving, reading some parts and listening at the same time through an P850.00 (1 US dollar = P55.00) speaker… I kept on skipping the part where that detail was being discussed.

It was an insfoxpirational show, so I didn’t mind listening again and again.

After the fifth replay though I noticed that ants and a couple of six legged entities were slowly swarming in.

Sixth replay and I’m seeing metal plated grasshoppers with tiny boxing gloves and soccer shoes.

Now… It was the fear of the eight-legged creatures weaving out that got me to stop the other works and concentrate on listening… and there on the 13:27 timestamp, I found what I was looking for.

I’m currently multitasking once again (I can’t seem to blog if I’m not doing some other stuff, and returning to this window every now and then to continue my chain of thought (and listening to some loud Moby stuff)), so I hope I get this right.

Ken Levy was giving out the 100:1 ratio in terms of Visual Studio/Visual FoxPro’s usage. Which he further places on a different perspective that based on that 100:1 stat, VS can gain in three days what VFP can sell for a year.

(That would make approximately 122:1 though, but still… we get the point.)

My first thought/reaction when I first heard this a month ago was why not re-include Visual FoxPro (without changing the VFP core) inside the Visual Studio package.

Ah there… I’m hearing the uproar of CLR purists (and yes I admit I’m not an expert at this marketing/branding stuff (besides Microsoft’s licensing and pricing is not that simple to start with)).

But let’s just do a little elementary math.

Approximately VFP’s price is 650 dollars.

Now… Visual Studio comes with different prices and I don’t have the actual statistics to show which edition/package sells better. But for the sake of this blogcussion, let’s pick the Professional Edition which is around 800 dollars.

Now let’s go back to that 100:1 ratio above. If VFP can sell 100 copies in 300 days, VS can sell the same number in three days.

(Let’s use 300 instead of 365 since this is ‘elementary math’ and I will refrain from using the ‘for the sake of discussion’ line from here forth)

Going further VS can sell 100 * (300/3) copies in 300 days. And that is 10,000.

Now for the sake of discussion (didn’t I mention that I would refrain from using that already…), let’s include VFP inside VS and just jack up the price of VS to 800 + N dollars (where N is less than VFP’s current price).

(I know VFP is worth MORE and if I have enough bucks I wouldn’t mind buying VFP even if it’s base price is more than 650. Legacy is priceless… but just FTSOD (For The Sake of Discussion)).

Now if N = 50 then, 850 * 10,000 is 8,500,000.

The additional 50 * 10,000 alone is 500,000. Much more than 650 * 100 which is equal to a 65,000.

And even if N = 10, 10 * 10,000 is still 100,000… 935,000 more than 650 * 100.

Yes I know I know… the pricing of these shrinkwrap softwares are more complicated than elementary math and there are tons of factors involved.

And for the nth time, the things posted above are FTSOD. Though there are possible benefits for both products (VS and VFP) and the community as well, if MS packs back VFP inside the Visual Studio package.

And there are disadvantages too, which are in the first place the reasons why VFP was not included inside that .NET package. (As discussed inside the Fox.wikis site, the Universal Thread forums and countless other fox sites.)

(Also notable are the advantages of shipping Visual FoxPro as an independent product.)

A clientbase of 100,000 (though I think VFP’s actual client base is more than that) is still NOT negligible.

And if you can remember around 2,000 years ago, a shepherd left 99 sheep to find one missing sheep. Though the FoxPro community is far from being lost sheep, we deserve the same kind of lovin’.

Right..?

Zkarkakaorooom. More like Z… k… a… r… k… a… r… m. That is the sound of my fourth rssreader/tool conking out after months of accumulating feeds. And it’s not even overfed. Every now and then I ‘safestore’ the feeds into its .mht format to be stored in a directory somewhere. Yes, I do this part semi manually with the help of the ever-reliable Norton Commander designed for Windows 95.

Out of respect for their developers, I won’t mention their product names.

Most of these rss-readers bonk out when they accumulate tons of data. And I do expect more from them.

This fourth one, holds a lot of important features, well the features that a pack rat like me prefers, and in fairness it did survive longer than the previous three. (Well actually more than three, but I’m only counting those tools which I used for more than three months)

And now it crashes every now and then, hangs and pretends to be seeing drunk mouth-watering aliens almost too often.

(One or a few more crashes are forgiveable, a couple more is believable especially if aliens are indeed involved, but more than that… I’ll be blaming either a lame developer or a lame tool (or both))

Which gets me thinking. Are we really entrusting the storage of data, and the data format itself to the proper tools and formats?

Please don’t make me mention the three letter acronym.

(OK… most of the technologies involved in this have three letter acronyms… so take your pick.)

One can always download these rss feeds, convert them to a format that can be stored inside VisualFoxPro’s native database engine (or even use an SQL Server (though that would be an overkill in terms of what I really need for now))…

… use VisualFoxPro to sort and browse data and I don’t believe even in running this for a year, VFP would conk out because it was overwhelmed with more information than it can process.

Unless of course, the… ok… for once, let’s refrain from involving aliens.

Don’t even mention that 2GB limit this time. There are tons of workarounds for that excluding the use of nanotech and parallel universes.

Can these new tools at least make themselves reliable first before masking and donning that ‘the-future/the-next-big-thing’ cape.

… and Beakman wonders why I try and use old technologies.

They’re not old… they are reliable.

Yes… reliable.

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Here’s an offshoot of that chat I had with Beakman yesterday (Happy Trip by the way, Mark.)

WF: I’m porting some of my old VFP6/VFP8 projects to VFP9 already, Mark. Blah blah blah… and more detailed blahs.
Beakman: Is it compatible..?
WF: Dude, Visual FoxPro is 20 years backward compatible.

Darn… I did use ‘dude’ in that statement.