foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

iOS.TEST

I’m also seriously considering merging some amount of photoblogging ( sans the LEGO ) into this workBLOG.

I will be away from the computer for most part of today to work on the blueprints of TheProject.

LOOOOoNG Table. SIGN Pens. A4 papers folded crosswise.

Processes. Modules. Vision. Goal. Data Structures. Arrows. Flow.

They all start on paper for me.

Jun Tangunan: Learning mdot (m. prefix) Usage.

Despite the LEGO pics proliferating in this blog, this… still is a VFP/FoxPro/work BLOG.

I really need a place… at night… where I can code without getting worried about someone tapping me from behind and reminding me that I am singing too loud already.

Fox links from the Visual FoxPro community.

Doug Hennig: Services as Products (via Akselsoft)

A number of interesting GDIPlusX (images and charts and all) going on at this VFP IMAGING site.

…

Going back to services and products, when we started doing freelance works around 6++ years ago, we made the services part free for one year. Client only has to pay for the customized product.

Even extended it to a couple more years, since most clients were kind enough to give us new projects (or recommend us to their branches) after the first year.

It worked well… until 2007, when a new wave of client adminstrators went in… new staff without proper turnovers and a lot of outside factors as well.

Now we’re spending some time ironing out things.

In this part of the world, the fair option that I see for freelancers like us would be to sell the Product as Product and the ‘Services as Product’ part will tackle the maintenance part.

Of course it also depends on what side of the fence are you in. Our Open Source lovin’ friends mostly would go for Services all the way.

Which works for them.

On our part, we still have a lot of re-planning to do since we have been discovering, as of late, that most human users are like Francium, one of the most unstable elements in this world.

Ok… we’re not going into the bloody details of that part.

I visited a client yesterday.

One of the few ‘they-just-call-us-once-a-year’ type of clients.

It’s either they really know the program so well that a programmer’s interventions are not needed or they’re not using the program.

Spent four hours on the road and bus… and just two hours in the client’s site.

Yeah… one of those provincial visits where the time consumed by transportation is much more than the actual client interaction itself.

Problem on site is not even programming related.

Hardware crashed… not my scope but I helped anyway.

Besides I need to update some modules.

Main database file shows a record of 1,445 records. They must be using the system.

I had the chance to talk to some heads too.

Two of our main problems with clients for the past year are administration changes without proper turnovers and staff changes, also, without proper turnovers.

Rode the bus home before the clock hit the 12 noon mark.

The bus ride home is always one of the interesting events of this visit.

The previous time I remember I felt like my pony-tail connected to the seat as if it was a cable connecting me to some moving Matrix-The-movie-like vehicle.

I felt like I was one with that bus which is not a bus at all.

Too surreal I can’t even describe it.

Yesterday… half asleep, I believe I saw three, not just one, but three buildings that seemed to have transferred from the right side of the road to the left side.

At least they were in the right side during my previous visit.

That was 11 months ago.

I’m quite sure those three huge buildings were on the left side of the road before.

As if in that span of time they have developed movable feet of some sort and uhm… crossed the road.

That and they were able to successfully mass-hypnotize the villagers in that place into thinking that nothing weird happened.

That everything’s all right.

You can’t fool me, you alien-beings-pretending-to-be-buildings!

I wear my psionic helmet protection all the time.

You know vacation is really over when a client call wakes you up at around 7:30AM after just having slept at 5:30AM finishing three rushed modules for another client.

(I still was able to squeeze in some time to watch that classic Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman / Rumble in the Jungle match in between codin’.)

This is one thing I like about Visual FoxPro.

You can solve and debug internal programming stuff online through client chats or calls.

You can even do those things half asleep and partly drooling.

I’ve tried some other PLs before… it makes you want to plug your hand inside the phone and warp it to the other end to touch the client’s keyboard/PC.

That… or you have to create a patch and/or visit the site as well in between cursing.

But then again I’ve been with VFP for quite some time and I haven’t tried using other PLs for actual client works.

(I’ve heard new languages allow you to create complex programs by just thinking of the program and structural flow while placing the palm of your hand on page 33 of their manuals. (If you can figure a way to place your right foot on page 40 it would even auto-generate a user guide complete with screenshots and all (Yeah that good.)))

Read and tested some new ones… yes… but haven’t had the ‘right’ reasons yet to actually use them in our freelance client works.

I’m with Craig Bailey’s assessment that 2007 was one of the busiest years for some of us.

I do hope I could do some graphics-related stuff this 2008.

I have spent some time during that Christmas vacation downloading ‘morally gray graphics-related resources’ and inspirational GFX-materials from various ‘morally gray’ sites.

Then there’s also that GDIPlusX release from CodePlex.VFPX (via Andrew MacNeill).

Also… I am itching to get my hands on SilverLight.

Strap yourself in boys, we’re in for some chop chops.

Chop chops… these are.

Call it refactoring if you want.

Tweaking.

Straightening out five year old ‘funny codes’. (Though I’m not sure if it will pass the dailyWTF criteria.)

LIBRARY SYSTEM version 2.001 screenshot

Four++ years ago a client asked me to continue a three year old project of theirs.

To be completed in seven weeks… that is.

(The topic of rushed projects have been a recurring item in this blog but no most of our projects are not rushed : )

So seven weeks, I was asked… if I could do it.

Being a proud programmer back then… I accepted it.

For pride… for glory… for the challenge.

(Payment will even be given a year after. Nine months after to be exact… so financial motivation was non-existent.)

Plus back then I felt like I was an ultra-bionic coder with 28 fingers and 42 mind-to-fingers 2048-bit internal buses that can tap three alternate universes for quantum fueled code-pounding mojos.

And I have FoxPro… of course.

VFP6 was the main weapon back then.

The client’s old project was done in Visual Basic 5 if I’m not mistaken. (With multiple ocx files)

So if you’re me faced with a rushed project to be finished in seven weeks… the best thing to do first is of course to convert things to Visual FoxPro.

I knew VB back then… but I’m more familiar with the Fox.

In pressured situations you tend to go with those you are familiar with.

Instincts.

Raw slashin’ instincts.

…

Imagine this. You’re fighting a swarm of droolin’ aliens. You have a choice between an advanced AKzVROOMzerg 19281 rifle with 1029 technicolored (and beautifully gradient) buttons you don’t understand but can wipe out 200 aliens in one blow.

Or an old used knife purchased in eBay.

If aliens are miles away you might try fidgeting with the rifle.

Read the effin’ manuals perhaps.

But if the aliens are just three feet away you’d grab the knife.

Instincts dictate you do do so.

(I know humans learn something from watching Rambo films. (Charlie Sheen spoof film included.))

FoxPro is that knife.

…

Going back to that project and aliens aside, I did retain the structure of the old databases.

Besides it contains a lot of data already.

I carefully imported them into independent FoxPro tables.

…

Fast forward to June 2007 and 8 clients later… I’ve decided it’s about time for an upgrade.

There were of course updates… fixes and all on version 1.00 but I want a major change.

Including a rehaul of those imported databases.

A complete restructure from top to bottom.

I don’t feel like I’m that ultra-bionic coder anymore but I did learn a lot.

Slashing instincts are still there though.

Plus we have new coding conventions.

And qs and I (who now codes with me (sometimes codes more than me)) have developed new engines. New frameworks.

(With new bugs. More advanced bugs. Bugs unseen to the naked user’s eye.)

So I started coding and restructuring. Laughing in between at old funny codes and flows.

Mid-August a client asked for a feature. A needed feature.

Thinking it was just easy we accepted it.

I fired up two logs. One for version 1.00 and one for version 2.00 with a sub part in the old log that points out to ‘codes/modules/forms modified in version 1.00 that are to be modified in version 2.00’.

Three months after I’m still working on that feature.

On both versions.

Pingpong-ing codes and chopped PRG files in between projects. A major change of database structure also made things harder. Think of the buffered variable names and flows I have to store in my mind to accomodate simultaneous processes.

Plus I’m already used to the new framework/engine of ours that uses a common library/codes folder. Much easier for lazy coders like me.

And I’m older now.

And unfocused.

I’m older and unfocused.

And more whiny.

AaaaaaRRGH.

Developers especially freelancers (assuming of course that their corporate counterparts are properly shielded and protected) should not only spend more time error trapping their codes, but also develop measures to error trap themselves from users.

Not all users are that bad of course.

Not all of them are ‘nice’ either.

And sometimes one not-so-nice out of ten nice ones is enough to pull you and your chi down.

(Note that I’m using ‘error trap’ and not ‘idiot proof’.)

We define ‘ET users” here as not those persons who constantly ask you questions.

We love those kinds.

Even if we are answering the same questions again and again.

(And again in the middle of our coding rituals.)

Even if we have answered them before, created a help file, and posted an online link for that topic. (That we already have given them before.)

At least they’re asking questions.

At least they’re actually using the program.

Even if they’re not reading user manuals.

Our problem lies with users who encounter a simple problem. Whines about it and never contacts us.

Now the problem lies there idle… for months.

The next thing we know the admins are pointing at us for a problem that we weren’t even informed of.

To make things more annoying… somewhere in between that span of time we did contact them but received no replies.

(There were also other factors involved like administration changes and staff changes with no proper turnovers.)

So how do you protect yourself from this kind of situation..?

There are a number of ways actually.

One is to LOG.

Log everything… from feature requests… to calls to IM chats to emails and even sms-es.

I remember a year ago we were called because a certain staff claimed that we haven’t been doing our job.

So we went there along with our one inch thick stack of chats/emails/sms-es and logs with dates and status reports.

We told them that even though we have complete logs of everything we would prefer to not point fingers and concentrate on solving the problem instead.

This time, partly we are lucky that someone was kind enough to follow up things for us and handle factors that are out of our hands.

Second defense mechanism would involve a maintenance scheme with fair prices that is not dependent on users contacting you.

But we’re still in the process of analyzing and testing that part.

We’ll keep you informed.

Now the bright side.

Yes we are eternally stubborn and optimistic.

0000 The cloud of uncertainty that have loomed over us for the past, what… 12… 15 years or so has evaporated. The announcement is over. We will no longer have those shrek-donkey-are-we-there-yet moments from within us and those surrounding us, which by the way is annoying.

Now we have to focus on what we have, which is enough really. The VFP core alone is a lot. Sedna being free and open source-d is of course, a plus.

0001 There’s more time to catch up. I don’t have to be bombarded with features that I don’t have the time to learn. I can still learn the old new features. Make the most of it. Probably I can even dig up undocumented ones.

Have more intimacy with VFP9.

0010 The VFP team can work on LINQ and other technologies that are being incorporated into VB.NET and C#. Those two languages still have a lot to do in terms of catching up with FoxPro… : )

0011 The whines generated online by that announcement is entertaining. It helps to ease the stress.

(Ah btw… if you’re wondering what this list is all about do check the details in the previous post.)

0100 Probably I can really move my arse to dig into that VS2003 I installed on SAKKHRA a year ago. Probably I can -R it (my attitude included) after letting it remain idle for some time. Now if only I can find a practical real world database application for that.

0101 CodePlex CodePlex CodePlex. Sedna Sedna Sedna. Insert the Balmeys somewhere here. (Animations included.)

0110 It sorts out the insecure developers, programmers and freelancers from the real ones.

There was a time when those Real Programmers don’t use C jokes were cool. Probably it’s about time someone writes a Fox version for that.

0111 It’s in our hands already. Sedna… in CodePlex… free and open source-d. With its promised extensibility, we can make a VisualFoxPro.NET 7000 with it, right?

We can even make our own OS with it if we like.

FoxPro-powered flight simulator… anyone..?

1000 VFP still works with SQL Server (MySQL and FireBird included), works with Office and even OpenOffice, runs on Windows XP and Vista, interconnects with .NET, understands XML… and a lot more.

VFP core still provides practical, reliable and cost-efficient solutions to your problems. Especially desktop-based applications.

1001 It gives you a good reason to really learn something new.

1010 Aliens will have a hard time invading us. Codes (Its syntax and semantics) generated from other languages, except for some, are more cryptic than the clarity FoxPro barfs out.

There’s more really… but I need to work.

No worries.

You can be sad of course, if you like. Disappointed perhaps… cry and do the rain dance. You can even compose and hum a melancholic tune if you want…

… but life goes on.

…

This is the part where we have an awkward moment with an entity whom we haven’t had conversation with for quite some time.

…

No posts for more than three months to be precise.

Christmas 2006 went by… New Year 2007… Valentine’s day and even this blog’s third year online and I haven’t been able to pushe myself into posting anything here.

I got tagged too. (I’ll post a separate scribble for that.)

And, Yes… foxpro.catalyst is three years old… : )

Ah three years of encrypting anti-alien-invasion code maps and schematics in the guise of FoxPro-related materials for covert cybernetically enhanced humanoids in seven areas of this planet.

(The old process was to embed in each image posted an encrypted message which you can extract through its RGB/HSL/dimension values, and decode using a dynamically-modified key stored somewhere in this site. (Again old process so I’m revealing it now.))

Seriously… thanks for all the fish, the visits, the rss grabbin’, the linking, and reading.

Thanks.

So where were we for the past few months..?

The easiest answer is to barf out that b— word, which every human, including (but not limited to), those who discovered porn, use these days.

The world, our world is slowly being filled with humans who tend to be always busy.

(And pretending to be busy.)

(There’s that space between Task.001 and Task.002 so we invented blogs.)

So where were we really..?

Let’s just say qs and I decided to take this little work-quest that we have started around five years ago to another level.

I will share the specifics, some keypoints, random roadblocks, issues, fruits and some details of this journey.

An old college classmate gave me an offline message containing a dailyWTF link on my newly upgraded YM.

I didn’t bother checking.

For one, dailywtf asks for a login password. Something it was not doing before. I have that site on my rssreader… but I haven’t been using an rssreader for months now.

(Update: It was asking for a password when I first scribbled this… around two weeks ago. And looks like the post itself was removed. Interesting. OR probably it was asking for a pasword because it has already been removed.)

An RSS reader is an information-overwhelming device I still have to figure out how to use without sacrificing productivity on my part especially these days that I’m only online for around 15 or so hours a week.

Second reason probably is this is another anti-FoxPro link from a classmate with whom I had constant VB versus VFP ‘battles’ before. (Those Visual FoxPro rules… VB drools types of ‘friendly arguments’.)

This is from someone who thinks Visual FoxPro is not object-oriented.

Yeah those types… : ]

VFP of course has been churning out OOP-powered alien repellants years before VB could even pronounce the word ‘inheritance’.

But I did promise myself not to bash another PL considering that somewhere in this Earth, a decent and honest programmer I’m sure is working on one, using it to provide a decent life supporting his decent family and probably a dog, while warding off alien invasions during his free time.

(Besides if you want to ‘attack’ VB itself, you can always point to their own wikipedia entry and quote Edsger Dijkstra’s words : )

I’m also pass that attitude where you ask what their PL can do and I’ll show you what FoxPro can do using three fingers in one third the amount of time it takes for that other PL to do… development, run time and maintanence related time frames included.

(Throw in cost-effectiveness and it’s a no match to the nTH degree.)

Of course I know FoxPro, though a mature product existing for two decades also has some limitations.

So when Mz told me he’ll shift modules from FoxPro to Delphi on one of his projects and pointed out the underlying reasons.

I understood his reasons.

He’s been using FoxPro for more than ten years. Though I strongly believe that with a proper overhaul and more intricate database structure planning on that project, VFP could have done it even without Delphi’s help.

I believe him because he has used FoxPro.

The problem here is there are so many humans who tend to blast Visual FoxPro without having have tried to use it in the first place.

During my immature VFP-versus-VB war days where I would involve myself in various anti-VB wars just for fun, I have already used VB (versions 3 and 5) for 4 years, ‘downgraded’ to Clipper 5.2/’87 and re-upgraded myself to VFP5 and later to version 6.

Most of those who attack VFP/FoxPro are those who haven’t used it.

Try using it for a month or two… you’ll see the difference.

I was reading Joss Whedon‘s interview from a not so old issue of Wizard Magazine during a coding break.

Nice interview from this creator of Buffy.

Though I can’t remember finishing an episode of Buffy on TV, his works on Astonishing X-Men caught my attention. Including the thousand others who consider it as one of the best X-Men runs since Claremont/Byrne and Morrison/Quietly.

It also made me go back to reading X-Men books after not reading them for… 12 or more years.

In one part of that interview he mentioned that comic books should not glorify killing and guns. Not killing makes Batman’s work even harder. It what makes Batman… Batman.

In fact, not killing The Joker backfired on him and the people close to him so many times.

But I believe Batman’s principles are not applicable to the programming world.

Well at least his no-kill policy isn’t.

Programmers should be given licenses to kill their users.

Right there.

Bang.

Ah wait… did I say users?

No, I mean bugs.

Kill bugs right then and there. Kill bugs like there’s no tomorrow.

Let them pass… ignore them… just jotting them in your bugtrack file is not enough.

You have to eliminate them on site.

No mercy.

Coders should instead take a page from the book of that character from that awe-inspiring manga Rurouni Kenshin named Saitou.

Had Saitou been living in this era of computers… he would’ve become a great coder.

He would be the coder where all other coders will be measured.

Drones included.

(Although Rurouni Kenshin is a best selling manga by artist/creator Nobuhiro Watsuki (later adopted as an anime show and commercially released in the US as Samurai X), Saitou by the way is based on a real person.)

Saito’s law… for those who are anime-and-manga-impaired is…

‘Kill. Evil. Instantly.’

Live by that code, coder.

…

Now I’m hearing some coders whispering that if we kill all those bugs and make things perfect, the software industry which relies so much on subscriptions/upgrades/versions would not grow.

Not true.

…

Batman � DC comics. Batman artwork above (and Poison Ivy artwork below) from Detective Comics 823.

Guest artist Joe Benitez pencils. Benitez came from Top Cow and is one of the co-creators of The Magdalena titles. He Illustrated Weapon Zero, some kick-arse Darkness Volume I issues and also the Wraithborn mini under the WildStorm imprint.)

The Joss Whedon interview can be read in Wizard Magazine‘s March 2006 issue. Issue number 173.

You changed and re-installed a new Windows XP OS. Let’s say on a new hard disk… slaved your previous primary disk.

Now there are certain folders/directories which for reasons you can’t track give you this message:

G:\Folder is not accessble.
Access is denied.

You tried things. Fired up some admin tools. Whine and groan… cast spells and nothing works.

You’re pretty sure you haven’t set those folders to ‘Private’ before.

Good thing you haven’t deleted your previous OS. You swapped drives again, booting from the previous error-moody WinXP OS. Now you can access them… copy the files to another partition… Re-swapped drives again and you still can’t access it in its new location. You now start calling the gods of thunder. Yeah Thor… no not the Civil War cloned one. The real one. Thor suggested you copy the files to another PC through LAN/network. And it worked.

He even told you to clean up the original folders. Since you can’t delete them when you’re using the new OS already.

(Cool guy… this Thor. Looks like there are Windows XP machines installed in Asgard these days. Loki, I’ve heard, prefers CentOS though. (Don’t ask me why… : ))

Then you start transferring 8GB files for 30++ minutes or so.

Things solved.

A lot of time wasted though.

I’m sure there’s a more efficient and logical way to solve this but I haven’t googled that much after solving the problem.

That was a month ago.

Now I’m faced with the same problem again.

I can’t call Thor this time. He’s into ballet lessons with Namor somewhere in an undisclosed area. From what I’ve heard Ben Grimm is joining them this week too.

Luckily I discovered a shorter way.

Right click on that inaccessible folder. Click Sharing and Security. Check Share this folder on the network. Check Allow network users to change my files.

Click Apply.

It will display an error message… possibly show that sands of time wait icon but it will make that forbidden folder accessible once more.

This is a sort of short circuit… or whatever you call it. I’m still looking for the real cause and the real documented solutions. If you know one fire me up.

I’m using the admin account and I’m too lazy to test it using another non-admin account, if the ‘solution’ works.

It works… but think of the security-related issues on the other side of the fence.

Time to end this… my linux zealot friend’s here.

Probably he’ll invite me to join Thor and Namor one of these days.