foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

Fred Vogelstein / WIRED : The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry. (via GeekPress)

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.

Daniel Simon’s The Detonator Bike (via TheLair/protozoa)

Got to have one of those for my qs.

More aa-awesomeazing Daniel Simon artworks, concepts and illustrations can be found in his official site. (And of course an art site would not be complete without female illustrations… : )

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Merry Christmas everyone… : ]

Aliens… bacteria and creatures from the Hollow Earth included.

Daz3D’s Aiko 3 / Xinxin / MIJ Bundle / Cool Fever
Rendered in Poser 6 (Poser 4 RenderENGINE)
Postwork in Adobe Photoshop CS / PSP 5.02
Background: Remixed Entrance Version III artwork

Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell is ‘an eight-minute animation created in NewTek LightWave 3D and Adobe After Effects for Harvard biology students.’ (via GeekPress)

All laptops (and portable devices) should learn a thing or two from this.

CGSociety.org posted an article on Beowulf Effects.

Interesting.

That… or I’m just finding an excuse to post Angelina Jolie pics.

Jolie, by the way, will also star in Wanted… an adaptation of Mark Millar‘s comic which Top Cow published.

To early to tell if this will be placed in the Comics-To-Movies Done Right list or the Hollywood-Butchers-Another-One bin.

So this is probably why Marvel is now chasing those comic torrent sites.

I’m not sure about this but torrents and scanned comics were the reason I went back to buying comics after 17++ years.

Good luck, Marvel. You have to do what you think you have to do.

Stephen J. Dubner: Bruce Schneier Blazes Through Your Questions. This is from the person who protects his laptop data with fists and PGP.

I was reading Marvel’s February 2008 solicitations at newsarama.

I buy comics for the art.

I read for the stories… but I can always DCP them somewhere or read them at wikipedia.org.

Or borrow from a friend.

(Read them I do before Hollywood butchers them.)

Nothing much has interested me art-wise except for this.

That’s X-Force 1… digitally illustrated by Clayton Crain.

Clayton’s style (3D-ish with digital airbrush) was impressive in both Ghost Rider limited series: The Road To Damnation and Trail of Tears.

He also illustrated this Spider-Man: Venom versus Carnage limited series prior to that Ghost Rider gig and some Sensational Spiderman covers and interiors.

(And Universe from Top Cow but his style was different then.)

Marvel also compiled some excellent Clayton Crain wallpapers. (There’s a free registration process but it’s worth it if you’re into this kind of thing.)

X-Force would probably be released sometime January (or late December) but if you’re looking for amazing artworks in comics this month… you’d definitely go for Ultimates 3.

Nice to see superstar JoeMad back… with Jeph Loeb nonetheless.

And Christian Lichtner!

That’s Mr. Liquid to you.

Jeph Loeb is one of the most respected writers in comics who was also a part of the writing/production of Smallville… Lost and currently… Heroes.

Whether he’s working for DC or Marvel, most of Loeb’s arcs hit the number 1 spot in terms of sales (and quality).

Ultimates 1 and 2 under Mark Millar, although verymvery entertaining (and political) never hit slot.001 in their 3++ year run. (That is of course if my memory and sources are right… : )

Also of course there’s that third and final issue of First Born from Top Cow which deserves a different post.

But here’s the cover artwork for now. (And you can view more preview images in this link.)

To be fair to DC here’s their February 2008 solicitations.

The FoxShow number 47.

The number 47 is a favorite of mine. Probably because of ALIAS. (with Rambaldi)

Apparently I’m not the only one interested with this number. (More related links at wikipedia)

Still… nothing compares to the Golden Number of course.

Wicked.

Here’s one more VFP-link before we get sidetracked with numbers some more.

Cesar Chalom: How to create text as image file with GDIPlusx.

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.

All I want for Christmas is this Star Trek Home Theater.

Dream on, WildFire.

Dream on.

In the lighter side of things… LEIGH remixed one of my Terai Yuki 2 renders.

Nice funky effects.

Now being the demanding person that I am, I’ll be asking 9 more remixes from her (or probably 7… I’ll create and remix 2 myself) and do a pingpong collab with her which will be compiled into one mosaic.

Knowing how slow I work that would probably take 3 to 5 years to finish.

But I think it’s worth the try.

What do you think, LEIGH..?

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.

Another modified Terai Yuki 2 render.

Content Paradise’s TY2 / modified TY2 Straight Jeans (Billy-T) / E-Frontier Poser 6 (using P4 Render Engine)

And of course the logo in her shirt is a VFPX project developer logo.

VFPX at CodePlex. Help spread the word.

VFPX.

OK… the rain stopped.

Now let’s do some GeSHi TESTING.

procedure UTILS_GETDatabaseIndexes()

    set procedure to UTILITIES
        
    select &cFilerDatabase
    nTagCount = tagcount()
    if nTagCount > 0                
        dimension aDesc(nTagCount)
        for nEXB = 1 to nTagCount    
            cSRK = 'cIndex' + NUMTOSTR(nEXB, 2)
            aDesc(nEXB) = &cSRK
        endfor
            
        dimension aIndex(nTagCount)                    
        for nCount = 1 to tagcount()
           if !empty(tag(nCount))
               cIndexDesc = tag(nCount) + ' (' + ; 
               aDesc(nCount) + ')'
               store cIndexDesc to aIndex(nCount)
           else           
               exit              
           endif           
        endfor                
            
        .cmbIndex.rowsourcetype = 5
        .cmbIndex.rowsource = 'aIndex'
        .cmbIndex.value = aIndex(nIndexSortIDNO)
    endif

EndProc

Related links:
» GeSHi / Generic Syntax Highlighter
» Wongoo Lee’s WordPress CodeHighlighter Plug-in