RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Well I don't believe the below statement from MS if the issues I am having with older MS products and Vista are to go by... http://tinyurl.com/2uepmn Basically Outlook XP is not broken in a way that it doesn't run anymore, but it is broken in a way that is to annoy the user something rotten. It isn't going to get fixed because the product is out of main stream support. Next OS comes, and VFP has some really bad issues. It still runs but there are many problems. MS then says, "That is a known compatibility issue between VFP and Windows SonOfVista that won't be fixed as VFP is out of mainstream support." Cheers MS! Tristan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Jennings Posted At: 03 April 2007 18:45 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Also including reply to your earlier... Vista support ends 2017. There will be other operating system versions and patches. Plans and details of those OSes is not known. I want to emphasize again, that there is no 'switch' that says this app will not work anymore. There are DOS apps that still work 15 years after DOS stopped being supported. 10 years ago we shipped VFP5. Your question is, will VFP9 work on an OS that will be released 10 years into the future. That is really an impossible question to answer. -- This email was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unless otherwise agreed expressly in writing by Marine Software Limited, this communication and attachments are to be treated as confidential and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it was sent. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication you should destroy it without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents. Please notify the sender immediately of the error. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marine Software Limited. Registered in England & Wales. No 2576494 Regsitered Office. Unit3, Aylesham Business Pk, Aylesham. Kent. UK -- ___ Post Messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
An outline of the VFS routemap for the next 5 years... Note that this was decided on last year based on planned future markets and is not a reflection of the recent announcement. VFP 9 & Sedna for the next few years (can't just dump over a million lines of code), with a review to move this app to c# in 2010. Other projects underway in c# with the Castle assemblies. -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Like you we have a big investment in VFP. So we'll be sticking with it for as long as feasible (which I suspect will be quite a long time - one thing MS have always been good with, that we tend to take for granted, is backwards compatibility). I give it minimum 5 years, maybe 10+ Gradual move towards Python / Dabo The attraction here (apart from Ed, who does look nice in a dress so I'm told ) is that it can handle web apps and desktop and is cross platform. Tristan Leask wrote: > Well it's a Friday morning and the guys in the office are chatting about > life after VFP. I was wondering what languages people are considering > to EXPAND to as part of their dev work? -- Cheers Brian Abbott ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
-Opprinnelig melding- Fra: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] På vegne av Michael Hawksworth < VFP 9 & Sedna for the next few years (can't just dump over a million lines of code) > Personally, I'm very excited to see what will come out of the effort from eTechnologica.net and their VFP --> .NET compiler. Will it be too little too late, or salvation? Eyvind. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Brian Abbott wrote: > Gradual move towards Python / Dabo The attraction here (apart from Ed, > who does look nice in a dress so I'm told ) is that it can handle web > apps and desktop and is cross platform. > Ed -- please comment on this. Is it for web apps as well? -- Michael J. Babcock, MCP MB Software Solutions, LLC http://mbsoftwaresolutions.com http://fabmate.com "Work smarter, not harder, with MBSS custom software solutions!" ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Dabo isn't, but Python has several frameworks that handle this. MB Software Solutions wrote: > Brian Abbott wrote: >> Gradual move towards Python / Dabo The attraction here (apart from Ed, >> who does look nice in a dress so I'm told ) is that it can handle web >> apps and desktop and is cross platform. >> > > Ed -- please comment on this. Is it for web apps as well? > -- Cheers Brian Abbott ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Tristan Leask wrote: > 1) VFP 9 & Sedna > People seem as though they are going to push it past the MS support > date. However there is no guarantee that VFP will continue to work on > OS's after MS start patching things and release new OS's. > Will be developing in it as long as there is development to do. Which will be a long time. > 2) MS .NET > Keep on the MS ship? Yes I know there are projects that may allow you > to run these programmes on Linux but do they work? And is there another > EULA waiting to happen? > Mono works to an extent, and will get better. .NET is still realistically Windows-based though, for the forseeable future. Things like the whole ADO.NET and Windows Forms areas are not easy to make cross-platform. > 3) Dabo (Python) > Ok, probably the best thing here maybe? Couple of fears though. The > first being that really if you are going to do this you must know how to > program in python (no brainer really) and understand how that works. > What happens if Paul and Ed mysteriously get run over by Steve Balmer? > Will the project continue or will it die? > > Python is going nowhere (I mean it's not going to disappear). Personally I have issues with GUI-based apps based on cross-platform languages like Python and Java, insofar as they look terrible compared to what you can do with native controls, although this situation is always improving. Also, I haven't seen an IDE that can compare in RAD terms to either Visual Studio or VFP. I can develop a whole web-based app in ASP.NET without having to see any HTML. Which suits me fine. I am basically entirely dictated to by what my customers want to see, and at the minute that's VFP and C#. If they start wanting Python on Linux, I'll be doing that too. I have no particular evangelical zeal for any platform. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 7:07 AM, Brian Abbott wrote: > Dabo isn't, but Python has several frameworks that handle this. That's right. And since Dabo uses a 3-tier design, you only need to rewrite the GUI. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Well, their .Net Extender has saved me hours of work so far so I'm rather upbeat about them at the moment. -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 7:21 AM, Alan Bourke wrote: > Python is going nowhere (I mean it's not going to disappear). > Personally > I have issues with GUI-based apps based on cross-platform languages > like > Python and Java, insofar as they look terrible compared to what you > can > do with native controls, although this situation is always improving. Try again. Dabo uses the wxPython GUI toolkit, which is based on the C++ toolkit called 'wxWidgets'. From their home page: "wxWidgets lets developers create applications for Win32, Mac OS X, GTK+, X11, Motif, WinCE, and more using one codebase. It can be used from languages such as C++, Python, Perl, and C#/.NET. Unlike other cross-platform toolkits, wxWidgets applications look and feel native. This is because wxWidgets uses the platform's own native controls rather than emulating them. It's also extensive, free, open-source, and mature." IOW, you want a button, you use the platform's API to draw a button. You want a tree, you use the platform's API to create a tree. No faking it; no approximations... because they *are* native controls. If you have some bizarre XP theme or Gtk theme installed, an app written in wxPython will use that theme, since it isn't drawing the controls itself. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
On Friday, March 23, 2007 6:54 AM Eyvind Axelsen wrote: >Personally, I'm very excited to see what will come out of the effort from >eTechnologica.net and their VFP --> .NET compiler. Will it be too little too late, or >salvation? I can't find eTechnologica.net website and I did check Google (or as someone told me: 'googles'). Is it related to .Net Extender that Michael Hawksworth was talking about? David L. Crooks ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
I'm the jerk that keeps posting about REALbasic but I think it's a viable and attractive alternative. Pros: 1) Easy to learn for Fox folk 2) Object oriented 3) Cross platform 4) Good IDE 5) Has a company dedicated and focused on its enhancement and growth 6) Reasonably priced (Free standard edition on Linux platform) 7) Database independent 8) Multi threaded 9) Strong typed 10) Growing developer base 11) There are books and magazines about RB 12) Closed source Cons: 1) Closed source 2) No report writer (but available in after market plugins) 3) Not yet in Tiobe top 50 4) Has the word "Basic" in name (RB is not VB6 though!) I'm interested enough that I've signed up for their REALWorld conference in May. I'm going to check things out more and hopefully learn some of the things that are gaps in my knowledge of RB. I'll post about it over on my blog. -Kevin CULLY Technologies, LLC Sponsor of FoxForward 2007 foxforward.net Tristan Leask wrote: > 4) REALBasic > Ok, I don't know much about this, but it seems to keep popping up over > and over again on these boards. Is this another VFP waiting to happen? > Are they likely to get brought up by the big boys, consumed and then not > supported in order to move people across to their .Nets? ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> Well it's a Friday morning and the guys in the office are chatting about > life after VFP. I was wondering what languages people are considering > to EXPAND to as part of their dev work? > > So far I have seen the following crop up... > > 1) VFP 9 & Sedna > 2) MS .NET > 3) Dabo (Python) > 4) REALBasic Tristan, if I recall correctly, you're young like me(20's). I've used many languages over the past 10 years and primarily code in VFP and VC++; VFP being the one I spend the most time with. I work at an employer with VFP, and I work on the side and develop applications for sale. Personally, I have to think about the next 30 years or so of my career(retiring right before January 2038 at the latest), unlike most people here. I have to think of what I can write applications in for my side business, ignoring any marketing hype(consumers rarely care), but I also have to keep a pulse on the job market for software engineers in my area. With this dual requirement, I've decided to pursue .NET. If I look at the software engineer positions being advertised around here, they're JAVA, .NET, and C/C++ predominantly. Most of the JAVA stuff is high level enterprise stuff which I've had some experience with in the past and hated. .NET is my choice to learn more of right now and start coding new applications in, as I think it makes the most sense for me, financially/career-wise, going forward. As much as I might like open-source stuff such as DABO and so on, there are almost no jobs available in my area for such. Even Ed himself doesn't have any paying Dabo work-- if one of the creators can't get any, why would I think I can? Think it through and try to make the best decision you can going forward. At our age, the worst thing we could do is hide our heads in the sand and think we can trek through with VFP alone for the rest of our careers... -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Derek Kalweit wrote: > As much as I might like open-source stuff such as DABO and so on, > there are almost no jobs available in my area for such. There will be plenty of Python opportunities though. Dabo != a programming language. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Tristan Leask wrote: > Well it's a Friday morning and the guys in the office are chatting about > life after VFP. I was wondering what languages people are considering > to EXPAND to as part of their dev work? There are two schools of thought here. The first is to be an expert in a language, and when the call comes for help in that language, you hold up your hand and yell, "Pick me! Pick me!" The other is to be a domain expert (auto parts, insurance, factory automation, pet store inventory...) and develop 'solutions' for that domain. The tool(s) you use are (mostly) irrelevant. I've always been a door #1 kind of guy, fortunate that I can pick up specific domain knowledge quickly and effectively. I like it because it's really interesting; on the factory floor with the Archie Bunkers and Homer Simpsons one day, in the bank's currency exchange back office with the vapid young pretties the next. Lot of variety. _MY_ plan (as I've stated in public many a time, although a few disgruntled folks have chosen to selectively edit what I've said to suit their own means) is to maintain VFP for years, but not to invest in it. Rather, spend spare R&D time in a _growing_ market opportunity. LAMP is the way to go as far as I'm concerned. I see MSFT's attitude and approach being a losing game. They're nasty and don't offer good value (anyone out there feel that a Vista upgrade is money well-spent?) The reason they're still making money is because people don't have much of a choice. LAMP offers opportunity and freedom... oh, enough of that soapbox. What's really compelling about the 'AMP' part is that it's cross platform. MySQL, PHP and Python (and Apache, actually) all run on multiple platforms, which is nice, since suddenly your skills are xferrable. I'm certain I'll be selling VFP books and doing VFP maintenance in 2020, but I don't see a big benefit in becoming a Sedna expert. Maintenance means remembering ON KEY LABEL, not MSFT's du-jour incarnation of COM, some obscure hook between VFP and something else no one ever used outside of the VFP test labs, or whatever nonsense they claim to be "the most secure operating system we've ever shipped". Having been burned multiple times, proprietary scares me. Whil ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Derek Kalweit said "With this dual requirement, I've decided to pursue .NET " so when does .net retire (just asking! ) Andrew Davies MBCS CITP - AndyD 8-)# ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any queries. ** ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
http://www.etecnologia.net/ and yes it is ;) -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Whil Hentzen (Pro*) wrote: > T > _MY_ plan (as I've stated in public many a time, although a few > disgruntled folks have chosen to selectively edit what I've said to suit > their own means) is to maintain VFP for years, but not to invest in it. > Rather, spend spare R&D time in a _growing_ market opportunity. > I think that's the way most people are looking at it. If nothing else there will be sh!tloads of migration work for apps and data moving away from VFP in 5-10 years time. > LAMP is the way to go as far as I'm concerned. I see MSFT's attitude and > approach being a losing game. Can you really see them doing a Novell though? I can't. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> > As much as I might like open-source stuff such as DABO and so on, > > there are almost no jobs available in my area for such. > There will be plenty of Python opportunities though. Dabo != a > programming language. A search of "python" on monster.com, dice.com, and careerbuilder.com for my city(Rochester, NY) all come up with 0 results. .NET comes up with 34/19/14. Java comes up with 29/11/31. Python isn't nearly as prevalent a language as some might think... -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> Derek Kalweit said "With this dual requirement, I've decided to pursue .NET > so when does .net retire (just asking! ) Beyond 2015 at this point. Regardless, Microsoft will have something new afterwards, at which point I'll be forced to accept new technologies, as is the nature of my career choice. It's very possible that it won't be Microsoft in 10 years-- it could be cross platform, or Linux platform, or something else entirely. But right now, the wise choice for me is Windows-- I have little or no need for cross platform desktop applications at the moment-- and based on the job market in my city, few others do(that or they use Java). -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> > _MY_ plan (as I've stated in public many a time, although a few > > disgruntled folks have chosen to selectively edit what I've said to suit > > their own means) is to maintain VFP for years, but not to invest in it. > > Rather, spend spare R&D time in a _growing_ market opportunity. > I think that's the way most people are looking at it. If nothing else > there will be sh!tloads of migration work for apps and data moving away > from VFP in 5-10 years time. Exactly. Some will be moving to cross-platform options such as LAMP or DABO, and others(and I think many more) will be moving towards .NET. If someone knows both, they'll be the perfect candidate for the job/task... There are already many of these VFP->.NET conversions, and there will likely be more to come. -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Well it just goes to show that people do actually pay attention to the posts I make on this list! I really want to be able to work with Python, but I just can't see how I can get to the stage where I am now in VFP. I can't imagine how I have come so far with VFP. It's like I have always known it. The main concern is the development time of having to create forms. A good GUI editor is very handy as then you don't have to spend age's fannying around with lines of code trying to visualize the final layout. Tristan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit Posted At: 23 March 2007 13:30 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? Tristan, if I recall correctly, you're young like me(20's). I've used many languages over the past 10 years and primarily code in VFP and VC++; VFP being the one I spend the most time with. I work at an employer with VFP, and I work on the side and develop applications for sale. -- This email was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unless otherwise agreed expressly in writing by Marine Software Limited, this communication and attachments are to be treated as confidential and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it was sent. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication you should destroy it without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents. Please notify the sender immediately of the error. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marine Software Limited. Registered in England & Wales. No 2576494 Regsitered Office. Unit3, Aylesham Business Pk, Aylesham. Kent. UK -- ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
By 2015, I should be retired, so it doesn't matter much. First choice is to continue with VFP9 & Sedna. For most of my customers and potential customer base, this approach makes the most sense. We have invested a lot of time in classes and libraries that work. We can put together solutions very quickly and make decent money doing it. Dabo (Python) would be the next choice. The cross platform aspects make it more and more viable as time goes on. I suspect people will be turned off by the Vista monster and go to Macs and PCs running Linux. I looked at MS .Net and it seems like a big shift in thought process and not necessarily a long lived approach. I know nothing about REALBasic. I looked at Java, but again it's a moving target. My brother and I worked on a course a couple of years ago. A lot is different in Java today. We'd probably have to start from scratch again. And it's not that easy. C and C# is out. Too low level for the solutions I want to provide. If a new IDE or 4GL comes along in the next few years, I'll have a look at it. > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Tristan Leask > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 5:54 AM > To: profox@leafe.com > Subject: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Well it's a Friday morning and the guys in the office are chatting about > life after VFP. I was wondering what languages people are considering > to EXPAND to as part of their dev work? > > So far I have seen the following crop up... > > 1) VFP 9 & Sedna > People seem as though they are going to push it past the MS support > date. However there is no guarantee that VFP will continue to work on > OS's after MS start patching things and release new OS's. > > 2) MS .NET > Keep on the MS ship? Yes I know there are projects that may allow you > to run these programmes on Linux but do they work? And is there another > EULA waiting to happen? > > 3) Dabo (Python) > Ok, probably the best thing here maybe? Couple of fears though. The > first being that really if you are going to do this you must know how to > program in python (no brainer really) and understand how that works. > What happens if Paul and Ed mysteriously get run over by Steve Balmer? > Will the project continue or will it die? > > 4) REALBasic > Ok, I don't know much about this, but it seems to keep popping up over > and over again on these boards. Is this another VFP waiting to happen? > Are they likely to get brought up by the big boys, consumed and then not > supported in order to move people across to their .Nets? > > > What other serious contenders are people looking at to move to as their > main language of choice? ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Tristan Leask wrote: > I really want to be able to work with Python, but I just can't see > how I > can get to the stage where I am now in VFP. I can't imagine how I > have > come so far with VFP. It's like I have always known it. Probably the primary thing that convinced me to go with Python was how quickly I was writing productive code. It isn't *that* different than VFP, and once you get the hang of namespaces, it's pretty straightforward. I haven't yet met a VFP programmer who couldn't immediately understand basic Python code, and who couldn't pick up the more advanced stuff without much sweat. > The main concern is the development time of having to create forms. A > good GUI editor is very handy as then you don't have to spend age's > fannying around with lines of code trying to visualize the final > layout. I agree, and this is where I plan on focusing my efforts with Dabo in the coming year. The Class Designer is already able to create forms visually; what I want to do is tie that and all the other stuff (database connections, menu creation, bizobj editing, etc.) into a unified IDE. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Tristan Leask wrote: > A good GUI editor is very handy Mandatory I would have thought. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Tristan, Ed is very nearly there with what you want design wise but not the full IDE. Given that there are only two core developers the progress has been amazing. Paul has put together a decent report writer and I guess that the more people get on board the faster the product will develop. I have noticed that some development is being handled now by other group members other than Ed and Paul. Once I get a clear run I must admit I'm going to really really try and get on board. Dave Crozier -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tristan Leask Sent: 23 March 2007 14:33 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Well it just goes to show that people do actually pay attention to the posts I make on this list! I really want to be able to work with Python, but I just can't see how I can get to the stage where I am now in VFP. I can't imagine how I have come so far with VFP. It's like I have always known it. The main concern is the development time of having to create forms. A good GUI editor is very handy as then you don't have to spend age's fannying around with lines of code trying to visualize the final layout. Tristan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit Posted At: 23 March 2007 13:30 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? Tristan, if I recall correctly, you're young like me(20's). I've used many languages over the past 10 years and primarily code in VFP and VC++; VFP being the one I spend the most time with. I work at an employer with VFP, and I work on the side and develop applications for sale. -- This email was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unless otherwise agreed expressly in writing by Marine Software Limited, this communication and attachments are to be treated as confidential and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it was sent. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication you should destroy it without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents. Please notify the sender immediately of the error. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marine Software Limited. Registered in England & Wales. No 2576494 Regsitered Office. Unit3, Aylesham Business Pk, Aylesham. Kent. UK -- [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> Well it just goes to show that people do actually pay attention to the > posts I make on this list! I take note of certain things people say, and I believe you and I are the youngest active members on the list, and that I remember... ;-) > The main concern is the development time of having to create forms. A > good GUI editor is very handy as then you don't have to spend age's > fannying around with lines of code trying to visualize the final layout. I thought Ed and Paul had some sort of form designer? If not, I'm sure it's on the horizon, considering they're considering it a RAD tool... Either way, my point was more that this decision, particularly for us, needs to be made with more than just technology and MS love/hate in mind-- there's important business/career implications as well. If you're an employee and not a consultant, you don't usually get to choose the technology you work with(particularly if you're looking for a new job)-- the market does... -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> By 2015, I should be retired, so it doesn't matter much. Exactly-- as is the case with many on this list(and with VFP in general). > Dabo (Python) would be the next choice. The cross platform aspects make it > more and more viable as time goes on. I suspect people will be turned off by > the Vista monster and go to Macs and PCs running Linux. Making a wrong decision here with predicting the future could be a career-crippling choice, however. As I've pointed out, for those of us dependent on the tide of the market, simply calling for the end of MS's rule won't end it itself. People have been calling for the end of Microsoft and the rise of Linux on the desktop for the past 8 years-- it's a long time coming, and I still have bills to pay... > I looked at Java, but again it's a moving target. My brother and I worked on > a course a couple of years ago. A lot is different in Java today. We'd > probably have to start from scratch again. And it's not that easy. Definitely not. And most of it is with enterprise java beans, application servers, etc. > C and C# is out. Too low level for the solutions I want to provide. C# isn't very low level. -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Derek Kalweit wrote: > Making a wrong decision here with predicting the future could be a > career-crippling choice, however. As I've pointed out, for those of us > dependent on the tide of the market, simply calling for the end of > MS's rule won't end it itself. People have been calling for the end of > Microsoft and the rise of Linux on the desktop for the past 8 years-- > it's a long time coming, and I still have bills to pay... I don't know if you and/or others realize this, but Python runs *great* on Windows. It certainly doesn't require Linux at all. Being able to write code that runs *unchanged* on any platform means that you don't have to gamble on the OS wars ending with any particular result. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> Probably the primary thing that convinced me to go with Python was > how quickly I was writing productive code. It isn't *that* different > than VFP, and once you get the hang of namespaces, it's pretty > straightforward. I haven't yet met a VFP programmer who couldn't > immediately understand basic Python code, and who couldn't pick up > the more advanced stuff without much sweat. I've written in many languages in the past 10 years-- VFP, VB/VBScript, ASP, PHP, VC++, VC#, Java, etc.-- they're all mostly the same. Most programmers can basically get the idea of what code is doing by reading it as long as descriptive commands/method names are used and no complex math/arithmetic(i.e. pointer arithmetic in c/c++). To a real software engineer, the language is irrelevant-- it's the design principles that are key. -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> > Making a wrong decision here with predicting the future could be a > > career-crippling choice, however. As I've pointed out, for those of us > > dependent on the tide of the market, simply calling for the end of > > MS's rule won't end it itself. People have been calling for the end of > > Microsoft and the rise of Linux on the desktop for the past 8 years-- > > it's a long time coming, and I still have bills to pay... > I don't know if you and/or others realize this, but Python runs > *great* on Windows. It certainly doesn't require Linux at all. Being > able to write code that runs *unchanged* on any platform means that > you don't have to gamble on the OS wars ending with any particular > result. Which is all fine and dandy unless you need to get a job writing in Python today. C/C++ and JAVA have been cross-platform for years. There are, however, always platform-specific code at points due to slightly different implementations. I'm sure the same exists for some Python code as well-- I'm guessing there's a Win32 namespace, for example... -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
'But would the alternatives run on Linux?' 'Is it open source?' Please people, go for what business is running. I am assuming they are your clients, haven't seen that much programming opportunity for the home user in our world. Once that you realistically look real numbers; something like Mac = 2% of the business world, Linux - 1% and Windows 97% [just guessing at the numbers but I haven't seen Linux running on the desktop in any office], the choices narrow a bit. VFP doesn't have the code base of other legacy products. COBOL still holds those reigns with ~75% of all code in production still being in COBOL. The VB6 folks have mostly migrated to .NET with a few moving to REALBasic and some small projects still being done in VF6. With the announcement of the demise of VFP, we now fit into that legacy product. Les face it, the support date isn't the time that people stop developing, it is the date that the last version has been announced. Businesses don't typically like to start large programming projects in dead languages. Don't rely on the philosophy issues of open source, go where you are needed. Business has spoken: .NET or for those weird people like me, porting their old legacy COBOL applications to .NET. By the time that the Business world does move to Linux on the desktop, COBOL will be a memory, not code in action working on big iron, and most of the world would be asking "Should I port my .NET application to Wiziagard?" jeff fisher, MCP www.turbofish.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:51 AM, Derek Kalweit wrote: > I've written in many languages in the past 10 years-- VFP, > VB/VBScript, ASP, PHP, VC++, VC#, Java, etc.-- they're all mostly the > same. Most programmers can basically get the idea of what code is > doing by reading it as long as descriptive commands/method names are > used and no complex math/arithmetic(i.e. pointer arithmetic in c/c++). > > To a real software engineer, the language is irrelevant-- it's the > design principles that are key. Only to a certain extent. Try as I might, I just can't think in Perl. I can manually translate it into something I can understand, but I can't read it. Lisp is sorta the same way - it just doesn't click in my brain. Any language that adds a ton of punctuation-type stuff or non-standard symbols (think of Perl/PHP's use of a period for concatenation) will not be one that I will ever be fluent in. There are also lots of other things that tend to continuously trip up development. One thing that most VFP developers love is the ability to create variables as you need them - no need to declare them first. Any language that requires that is a PITA, IMO. Sure, there are tools to automate that process, but if a tool can do it, why can't the language itself? -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:54 AM, Derek Kalweit wrote: > Which is all fine and dandy unless you need to get a job writing in > Python today. You should have seen the sponsors at PyCon - every single one of them was hiring. At times it felt like a job fair! You said that there are no Python jobs in the Rochester area, but the Rochester Python user group has about two dozen members, nearly all of whom work with Python in their jobs (the rest are students). > C/C++ and JAVA have been cross-platform for years. There are, however, > always platform-specific code at points due to slightly different > implementations. I'm sure the same exists for some Python code as > well-- I'm guessing there's a Win32 namespace, for example... There is a Win32 package for dealing with COM and the like, so if you use that, then sure, you're tied to Windows. Beyond that, though, I can't think of anything else. Even the os.path module abstracts out the pathing differences, so that you don't have to worry about it. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:02 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > Please people, go for what business is running. Another anti-VFP post! ;-) -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Whil Hentzen (Pro*) > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 6:59 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? > > There are two schools of thought here. The first is to be an expert in a > language, and when the call comes for help in that language, you hold up > your hand and yell, "Pick me! Pick me!" > > The other is to be a domain expert (auto parts, insurance, factory > automation, pet store inventory...) and develop 'solutions' for that > domain. The tool(s) you use are (mostly) irrelevant. > > > Whil > Whil has a great point here. I have been writing software for the trucking industry for over twenty years so I would have to be in category number 2. I've written in COBOL, RPG, Basic, C, dBase; and for the last fifteen years, FoxPro. I prefer FoxPro because it is the most complete, all-in-one development language I have used and one a small shop such as mine can develop a complete professional application with - and more importantly - the FoxPro community. I am going to continue to maintain my applications using VFP9 and the VMP framework. In the meantime I have been learning Python and plan on doing new development using Dabo. Python is very powerful and easy to learn for someone familiar with FoxPro. At this point in its life, Dabo is very impressive and will only get better as more people use it. Ed & Paul have not only done a great job on Dabo, but they are very helpful for those of us new to Python. Also, from what I have seen so far; there is a substantial Python community out there - not to mention hundreds of frameworks for doing just about anything. Also, Python does not mean you have to use Linux or OSX. All of my customers are Windows users and that will not change. Python does Windows (and even .NET - see IronPython) just fine. I just wrote a program in Python to take .csv files downloaded from my bank accounts & credit cards and create .iif files to import into QuickBooks. I have only been reading up on Python for a couple of weeks but it was pretty easy to do. Can I say "fun", too? Jeff Jeff Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623-582-0323 Fax 623-869-0675 --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/signed text/plain (text body -- kept) application/x-pkcs7-signature --- ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Check out the subject line. Others have posted what to move to but while trying to keep open source in mind. Business aren't looking for open source solutions, they are looking for solutions. They see .NET as a solution, not Dabo jeff fisher, MCP www.turbofish.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 10:11 AM To: ProFox Email List Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:02 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > Please people, go for what business is running. Another anti-VFP post! ;-) -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
A UK wide search on jobsite.co.uk gives: Foxpro9 (Pegasus Opera2 is offering up to £50/hour!) LAMP45 Python97 PHP 334 Javascript 725 Java1758 .net2417 Andrew Davies MBCS CITP - AndyD 8-)# "Derek Kalweit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] om> cc: Sent by: Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? profoxtech-bounce [EMAIL PROTECTED] 23/03/2007 14:04 Please respond to profox > > As much as I might like open-source stuff such as DABO and so on, > > there are almost no jobs available in my area for such. > There will be plenty of Python opportunities though. Dabo != a > programming language. A search of "python" on monster.com, dice.com, and careerbuilder.com for my city(Rochester, NY) all come up with 0 results. .NET comes up with 34/19/14. Java comes up with 29/11/31. Python isn't nearly as prevalent a language as some might think... -- Derek [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:46 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > Check out the subject line. Check out the emoticon. > Others have posted what to move to but while trying to keep open > source in > mind. Business aren't looking for open source solutions, they are > looking > for solutions. They see .NET as a solution, not Dabo OK, let's compare: Microsoft's .Net marketing budget: $99 zillion Dabo's marketing budget: $0 I wonder why they aren't clamoring for Dabo? I'm always amazed at who this "business" is. Do they get together and decide how they are all going to proceed? Or is their a secret leader who dictates what everyone shall use? Let me throw out a couple of names. You tell me if they are "businesses". Google / YouTube NASA AstraZeneca Industrial Light and Magic Amazon.com Honeywell Air Canada Philips Semiconductor Kodax Xerox -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Derek Kalweit wrote: > Personally, I have to think about the next 30 years or so of my > career(retiring right before January 2038 at the latest), unlike most > people here. I have to think of what I can write applications in for > my side business, ignoring any marketing hype(consumers rarely care), > but I also have to keep a pulse on the job market for software > engineers in my area. > > In all reality, what you will have to work with and what platforms 30 years, or even 8 years from now is totally irrelevant now. The face of development changes so fast that what we are using now will be the same as other obscure languages. Our beloved VFP will still be around until the desktop as we know it will cease to exist. Derek Kalweit wrote: To a real software engineer, the language is irrelevant-- it's the design principles that are key. That is the key point. I will not be here to take up the banner for what ever the next new bright shiny 'language of the month' shall be but until I retire (about 2 yrs from now) I will be gainfully employed. My present job is doing web development with PHP/MYSql and some VFP/FP-DOS. A good developer will be in demand. What language? - well, the flavor of the month. Jim This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Jeff Fisher > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 8:47 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > > Check out the subject line. > Others have posted what to move to but while trying to keep open source in > mind. Business aren't looking for open source solutions, they are looking > for solutions. They see .NET as a solution, not Dabo > > jeff fisher, MCP > www.turbofish.com This is a repeat: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2100629,00.asp Also, Google uses Python - two examples. Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on the Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest five in the country. I am continually surprised at what projects are developed in when I hear of them. There are even several large VFP projects, but I have not seen job postings for software developers with this company. My choice to pursue Python has nothing to do with open source or cross platform. I would gladly pay for Python as I have MSDN, but they are not charging me for it. My choice is because I need to develop applications that work and that I can maintain for my customers. It's my opinion that Python will do that as well as VFP. Jeff Jeff Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623-582-0323 Fax 623-869-0675 --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/signed text/plain (text body -- kept) application/x-pkcs7-signature --- ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Generic reply, not directed ant anyone in particular: If you can write apps in VFP, you can write apps in anything. I've been a programmer since 1964. I've programmed in everything: IBM mainframe assembler, Cobol, PL/1, Fortran, a gaggle of PC languages, as well as programming for imbedded microprocessors. Once you know HOW to write programs, learning a new language and applying it is easy. VFP is actually a lousy programming language - it doesn't protect you from yourself, like a lot of modern strongly-typed languages do. It is easy to shoot yourself (and your client) in the foot, or other more tender parts. If you are successful with VFP, you should have no problems with Python, C#, Algol, ... (add language flavor of the month here). The development environment is a lot more important than the language. Remember Foxbase II? Remember how you had to design forms? And a good framework. I've been using Codebook for years. Trying to convert a VFP app to Visual Basic wouldn't be hard, from a language point of view. But there is no framework to build upon - I'd have to convert CodeBook as well. Don't get hung up on "I'm a VFP developer". You aren't. You are an application developer. And you can develop apps in any language that meets the client's needs. It might take you a while longer than if you did it in VFP, which we all know like the back of our hands. There is going to be a learning curve. But you can do it. But if a client's needs might be best satisfied by using Delphi, why not? You don't need to be a one-tool application developer. A carpenter would be in deep doo-doo (sawdust?) if he only had one saw. Put several saws in your toolbox, and get out there and build things. Why not use some of your spare time taking a small VFP app that you have written, and convert it to some other language? Python/DABO? VB and mySQL? Make it a web-based app, using PHP and Apache and mySQL? C# and SQL Lite? No need to despair. There will always be more work out there than people to do it. At 10:40 AM 2007-03-23 -0400, you wrote: >On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Tristan Leask wrote: > > > I really want to be able to work with Python, but I just can't see > > how I > > can get to the stage where I am now in VFP. I can't imagine how I > > have > > come so far with VFP. It's like I have always known it. > > Probably the primary thing that convinced me to go with Python was >how quickly I was writing productive code. It isn't *that* different >than VFP, and once you get the hang of namespaces, it's pretty >straightforward. I haven't yet met a VFP programmer who couldn't >immediately understand basic Python code, and who couldn't pick up >the more advanced stuff without much sweat. > > > The main concern is the development time of having to create forms. A > > good GUI editor is very handy as then you don't have to spend age's > > fannying around with lines of code trying to visualize the final > > layout. > > I agree, and this is where I plan on focusing my efforts with Dabo >in the coming year. The Class Designer is already able to create >forms visually; what I want to do is tie that and all the other stuff >(database connections, menu creation, bizobj editing, etc.) into a >unified IDE. > >-- Ed Leafe >-- http://leafe.com >-- http://dabodev.com > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> > I've written in many languages in the past 10 years-- VFP, > > VB/VBScript, ASP, PHP, VC++, VC#, Java, etc.-- they're all mostly the > > same. Most programmers can basically get the idea of what code is > > doing by reading it as long as descriptive commands/method names are > > used and no complex math/arithmetic(i.e. pointer arithmetic in c/c++). > > To a real software engineer, the language is irrelevant-- it's the > > design principles that are key. > Only to a certain extent. Try as I might, I just can't think in > Perl. I can manually translate it into something I can understand, > but I can't read it. Lisp is sorta the same way - it just doesn't > click in my brain. Any language that adds a ton of punctuation-type > stuff or non-standard symbols (think of Perl/PHP's use of a period > for concatenation) will not be one that I will ever be fluent in. Yes, there are quirks and funkiness in some languages-- that hinder their proliferation, honestly(such as lisp and to some extent perl; I agree in both cases). There are also some languages such as assembly(is assembler officially a language?) which aren't of the same level that are just not the same. > There are also lots of other things that tend to continuously trip > up development. One thing that most VFP developers love is the > ability to create variables as you need them - no need to declare > them first. Any language that requires that is a PITA, IMO. Sure, > there are tools to automate that process, but if a tool can do it, > why can't the language itself? As in never declaring the variable and having it implicitly a public variable? That's just messy and I'm glad that many other languages don't support that. As for having to declare variables first in the method/function, I haven't seen many modern languages that still do that. I know in c++, c#, etc., you can declare variables farther down in the code-- including inside code blocks which actually is more efficient at times(why allocate memory for a variable that's never used in most cases, for example). -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Check out Andy's post for a real number of what is really out there. Python makes it to a big time 2% but .NET comes in at 45%. VFP comes in at less than one percent. In my neck of the woods, the java numbers aren't as big but the .NET numbers command over 60% of the market. Python didn't make it to the list. Now why are you pushing Dabo again? An exercise in futility. You are abandoning the true market because it is lead by Microsoft and Microsoft isn't open sourced software. jeff fisher, MCP www.turbofish.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 11:00 AM To: ProFox Email List Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:46 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > Check out the subject line. OK, let's compare: Microsoft's .Net marketing budget: $99 zillion Dabo's marketing budget: $0 I wonder why they aren't clamoring for Dabo? I'm always amazed at who this "business" is. Do they get together and decide how they are all going to proceed? Or is their a secret leader who dictates what everyone shall use? ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> You should have seen the sponsors at PyCon - every single one of > them was hiring. At times it felt like a job fair! I'm sure it's the same at the Lisp conferences.. niche markets recruit in niche ways.. > You said that there are no Python jobs in the Rochester area, but > the Rochester Python user group has about two dozen members, nearly > all of whom work with Python in their jobs (the rest are students). I said there are no Python jobs 'available' in rochester. The PUG members must have taken all 2 dozen of them. :-) I'd guess there's probably more VFP jobs currently in Rochester than Python jobs... -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 12:26 PM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > Now why are you pushing Dabo again? I'm not pushing anything. Someone asked, and others responded. If you followed the thread, you'll note that I didn't respond by "pushing" or even suggesting Dabo. My responses were only to either a) answer a question that was directly asked to me or b) clarify misinformation/FUD. > An exercise in futility. You are > abandoning the true market because it is lead by Microsoft and > Microsoft > isn't open sourced software. B-a-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on the > Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what > businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest five Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're not hiring ME. -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
I've got just the "in house" small app that can have the treatment for this! Good idea. Tristan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Larry Bradley Posted At: 23 March 2007 16:22 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? Why not use some of your spare time taking a small VFP app that you have written, and convert it to some other language? Python/DABO? VB and mySQL? Make it a web-based app, using PHP and Apache and mySQL? C# and SQL Lite? -- This email was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unless otherwise agreed expressly in writing by Marine Software Limited, this communication and attachments are to be treated as confidential and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it was sent. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication you should destroy it without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents. Please notify the sender immediately of the error. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marine Software Limited. Registered in England & Wales. No 2576494 Regsitered Office. Unit3, Aylesham Business Pk, Aylesham. Kent. UK -- ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:35 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on > the > > Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what > > businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest > five > > Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show > at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find > another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're > not hiring ME. > > > -- > Derek > I believe this is the real meat of the argument rather than what language to use. Since I am self-employed I can choose what works best for me. If I were to go looking for a job, that would be a different matter. When looking for a job - years ago, I looked at what people were using and went to school to learn it. I took COBOL and RPG classes at night. When I landed my first job it was using Basic. Jeff Jeff Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623-582-0323 Fax 623-869-0675 --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/signed text/plain (text body -- kept) application/x-pkcs7-signature --- ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this... http://www.etecnologia.net Surely this will save Man Years of work if apps needed to be rewritten in another language. Looks like it will give the Language a long lease of life, until M$ decide to KILL .NET that is! When you look at a new application that has taken 3 years to get to a good state and more importantly it's selling, the thought of having to re-write it all is a bit of a bind and more importantly, very expensive. Surely porting would be a favourable option? Robert Jennings Development and Computer Services Manager Marine Software Limited -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeff Johnson Posted At: 23 March 2007 16:57 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:35 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings > > on > the > > Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and > > what businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the > > largest > five > > Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show > at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find > another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're > not hiring ME. > > > -- > Derek > I believe this is the real meat of the argument rather than what language to use. Since I am self-employed I can choose what works best for me. If I were to go looking for a job, that would be a different matter. When looking for a job - years ago, I looked at what people were using and went to school to learn it. I took COBOL and RPG classes at night. When I landed my first job it was using Basic. Jeff Jeff Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623-582-0323 Fax 623-869-0675 --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/signed text/plain (text body -- kept) application/x-pkcs7-signature --- [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
One "enhancement" that I'm going to make for FoxForward is a board where attendees can place job openings, and other attendees can place their contact information. There were several companies last year that stated that they were hiring (for VFP and other technologies) but I was caught a little flat footed and didn't find a way to get the companies looking for people together with those looking for work. I hope to correct that this year, even if it's in a small way. -Kevin CULLY Technologies, LLC Sponsor of FoxForward 2007 foxforward.net Derek Kalweit wrote: > I'm sure it's the same at the Lisp conferences.. niche markets recruit > in niche ways.. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Well, I'm not one of the duffers who will be safely shuffled off to retirement by 2015, nor am I one of those two pesky little brats that were scurrying around here somewhere. No, like a fine, golden wine, I'm aged to perfection, and hitting my stride as I sail through the tree of life. (mixed metaphors at no extra cost). So I need to worry about the future. For the short run, VFP. Beginning SOON, want to get into Dabo, Python and PHP. I will be looking at cross platform (XAMP) first, open source second. I may look into .net to see if it's something I'll need to support, but it seems to me to be starting to die off. Realbasic? Hm BASIC sounds so toy-like. Java, IMHO, is fading, and I flat out suck at VC++. (To paraphrase E. A. Poe: "I suck with a suck that is more than a suck.") Python seems to be the way to go - it's cross platform, and easy for me to understand. I've been amazed at the times I've dusted it off and played with it, how the code just *works*, and how few lines of code it takes to work. I love the write-once, deploy many concept of cross platform. I agree that there aren't a lot of Python jobs listed out there, but I think the number is growing. More importantly, that mostly affects W2 people. As my own boss, I can hire myself to work in whatever language I want. ( I also consistently win "Employee of the Month", but I digress). I hear the shrill protests begin: "Yaw, but you can't work in whatever language you want without customers wanting the language!" Ah, Contraire, mi Akole Pukah! (Mixed languages - see? Easy!) I've built up my business to the point now where *I* tell my customers what language I'll be using (if they even care). They basically just come to me as say "I need a program to do this and that, and generate this report." The rest is up to me. Mostly I use VFP because a lot of stuff is still support work, and because I can work fastest in it, but it's just a matter of getting organized, downloading the latest Dabo setup (again), and getting started. In summary: VFP for now, heading towards Python/Dabo, with the overriding important consideration being cross-platform. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> up development. One thing that most VFP developers love is the > ability to create variables as you need them - no need to declare > them first. Any language that requires that is a PITA, IMO. Sure, > there are tools to automate that process, but if a tool can do it, > why can't the language itself? > I'm exactly the opposite. I wish the languages would enforce variable declarations. I hate debugging someone else's code and coming across a var that just appears in the middle of the code. I'd rather see it at the beginning of the function. YMMV. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Ed Leafe wrote: > Microsoft's .Net marketing budget: $99 zillion > Dabo's marketing budget: $0 > > I wonder why they aren't clamoring for Dabo? > That is the saddest thing I ever read! My dollar is on it's way! (That's an infinite percentage increase, if you do the math, so I expect to see "Ultimate Dabo" on the shelves in Staples, soon.) > Let me throw out a couple of names. You tell me if they are > "businesses". > > Google / YouTube > NASA > AstraZeneca > Industrial Light and Magic > Amazon.com > Honeywell > Air Canada > Philips Semiconductor > Kodax > Xerox Don't do it! Don't fall for it! If you say "yes", Ed will say "They all use Python!" ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this... > > http://www.etecnologia.net And in 10+ years, "translator" technology will be more greatly advanced then it is today. > Surely this will save Man Years of work if apps needed to be > rewritten in another language. Looks like it will give the > Language a long lease of life, until M$ decide to KILL .NET that is! > > When you look at a new application that has taken 3 years to > get to a good state and more importantly it's selling, the > thought of having to re-write it all is a bit of a bind and > more importantly, very expensive. > > Surely porting would be a favourable option? This is why those of us who have invested in VFP applications shouldn't be bothered by any of this. Think of all the features and functionality we can add to our existing VFP apps (frameworks) over another 10? And then, around the time we need it, we'll have some tool like this to give us a bridge into whatever latest-and-greatest dev tools are out there at the time, which we pretty much can assume will be better - and possibly different then what's hot today. Maybe OOP will be obsolete by then? This reasoning works best for people with investments in VFP products. Employees and contactors are feeling the pinch in the job market, it seems, but I think the market for talent will never get to the point where a capable programmer wouldn't be able to find something to do. Bill > > Robert Jennings > Development and Computer Services Manager > Marine Software Limited ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
I saw your comment about "Basic", so let us just agree to call it "RB". ;) RB is strong typed and you can initialize it on the same line dim lReturn AS Boolean = False dim cSettings AS String = "" My #1 enemy in VFP is myself. I end up trying to add a string and a number together. In RB the compiler finds most of these issues at build time and saves me tons of time by keeping me from stepping on my own toes. -Kevin CULLY Technologies, LLC Sponsor of FoxForward 2007 foxforward.net Vince Teachout wrote: > I'm exactly the opposite. I wish the languages would enforce variable > declarations. I hate debugging someone else's code and coming across a > var that just appears in the middle of the code. I'd rather see it at > the beginning of the function. YMMV. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Curiously, and for the most part,
My Take on it all echoes what Whil Hentzen has said.
Regards [Bill]
--
William Sanders / efGroup {rmv the DOT BOB to reply}
VFP Webhosting? You BET! -> http://efgroup.net/vfpwebhosting
Failing dotNet Project? -> http://www.dotnetconversions.com
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Re: Another life after VFP thread?
> My #1 enemy in VFP is myself. I end up trying to add a string and a > number together. In RB the compiler finds most of these issues at build > time and saves me tons of time by keeping me from stepping on my own toes. Yes-- as all strongly typed languages will do, saving people from many bugs. I don't have stat data, but I'd say over 50% of my bugs(mostly caught in first-run during development, but not all) are operator/operand type mismatch due to something like this. That and simple typos for field names(using VariSense has almost completely eliminated this for me for variable names), and occassionally getting caught by a copy/paste of an object reference(this.dosomething on a form copied to another level and should be remapped to thisform.dosomething or similar). -- Derek ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On 3/23/07, Whil Hentzen (Pro*) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There are two schools of thought here. The first is to be an expert in a > language, and when the call comes for help in that language, you hold up > your hand and yell, "Pick me! Pick me!" I think it's not just "A" language, but a whole bunch of tools that work together: the database, the server OS, the glue that puts the whole thing together, the installer, the bug tracker, the version control system, etc. And knowing the range and scope of the tools: how big an application, how many workstations or connections, how much data, etc. And perhaps knowing a few other tools "up or down-scale" that might fit if your tool of choice is not the best fit (Anyone remember Alpha 5?) And the other subsidiary tools: ERD diagrammers, UML builders, Wikis, etc... > Having been burned multiple times, proprietary scares me. This week reminded me of the dog-and-pony I saw Ashton-Tate put on in Boston, circa 1988. dBase IV had just come out and they were doing a tour showing it off. I was at a government-only briefing, iirc, and the demo people (I think they were "names") couldn't keep the product running. "I've gotta bail out of this," I recall thinking. That's when I went with Fox. Could have done worse. And now it's time to pick again. So much cool stuff to pick from. Web-based or rich-client? AJAX or conventional? SOA? Client-server? (well, obviously). 2-tier or n-tier? Open Source or proprietary? ASP model or shink-wrapped, custom code or retail? There's a lot of choices, and each person has to find the business that works for them. As for the "career-crippling" comment, let's get real. It's the choice of a tool. Make the wrong choice, you drop it and pick up another. DeWalt, Milwaikee, Makita -- you "have a bad experience," you pick another one next time. If you don't strike out once in a while, you're not trying hard enough. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Mar 23, 2007, at 2:43 PM, Derek Kalweit wrote: > Yes-- as all strongly typed languages will do, saving people from many > bugs. I don't have stat data, but I'd say over 50% of my bugs(mostly > caught in first-run during development, but not all) are > operator/operand type mismatch due to something like this. You're confusing static typing and strong typing. And there are also downsides to statically-typed languages. http://www.mindview.net/WebLog/log-0025 -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Ed Leafe wrote: > On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:46 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > >> Check out the subject line. > > Check out the emoticon. > >> Others have posted what to move to but while trying to keep open >> source in >> mind. Business aren't looking for open source solutions, they are >> looking >> for solutions. They see .NET as a solution, not Dabo > > OK, let's compare: > Microsoft's .Net marketing budget: $99 zillion > Dabo's marketing budget: $0 > > I wonder why they aren't clamoring for Dabo? > > I'm always amazed at who this "business" is. Do they get together > and decide how they are all going to proceed? Or is their a secret > leader who dictates what everyone shall use? > > Let me throw out a couple of names. You tell me if they are > "businesses". > > Google / YouTube > NASA > AstraZeneca > Industrial Light and Magic > Amazon.com > Honeywell > Air Canada > Philips Semiconductor > Kodax > Xerox > AFAIK Ed, Kodax is a pirate Taiwanese company that manufactures illegal digital cameras. ,c) > > -- Ed Leafe > -- http://leafe.com > -- http://dabodev.com > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Jeff Fisher wrote: > Check out Andy's post for a real number of what is really out there. > Python makes it to a big time 2% but .NET comes in at 45%. VFP comes in at > less than one percent. > > In my neck of the woods, the java numbers aren't as big but the .NET numbers > command over 60% of the market. Python didn't make it to the list. > > Now why are you pushing Dabo again? An exercise in futility. You are > abandoning the true market because it is lead by Microsoft and Microsoft > isn't open sourced software. > God! Here we go again! Is Ed relly good looking? He's pushing Dabo because "I" plan to move into it. So what's your problem with that? You just stick to .Net and let us be happy programming in beautiful languages. > jeff fisher, MCP > www.turbofish.com > > > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Ed Leafe > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 11:00 AM > To: ProFox Email List > Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? > > On Mar 23, 2007, at 11:46 AM, Jeff Fisher wrote: > >> Check out the subject line. > > OK, let's compare: > Microsoft's .Net marketing budget: $99 zillion > Dabo's marketing budget: $0 > > I wonder why they aren't clamoring for Dabo? > > I'm always amazed at who this "business" is. Do they get together > and decide how they are all going to proceed? Or is their a secret > leader who dictates what everyone shall use? > > > > > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Derek Kalweit wrote: >> You should have seen the sponsors at PyCon - every single one of >> them was hiring. At times it felt like a job fair! > > I'm sure it's the same at the Lisp conferences.. niche markets recruit > in niche ways.. > Do you really care if pay your rent with 'niche dollars'? ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
You've seen the Bourne series of movies, right? They're based on Paul and Ed's lives... :-) Tristan Leask wrote: > Well it's a Friday morning and the guys in the office are chatting about > life after VFP. I was wondering what languages people are considering > to EXPAND to as part of their dev work? > > So far I have seen the following crop up... > > 1) VFP 9 & Sedna > People seem as though they are going to push it past the MS support > date. However there is no guarantee that VFP will continue to work on > OS's after MS start patching things and release new OS's. > > 2) MS .NET > Keep on the MS ship? Yes I know there are projects that may allow you > to run these programmes on Linux but do they work? And is there another > EULA waiting to happen? > > 3) Dabo (Python) > Ok, probably the best thing here maybe? Couple of fears though. The > first being that really if you are going to do this you must know how to > program in python (no brainer really) and understand how that works. > What happens if Paul and Ed mysteriously get run over by Steve Balmer? > Will the project continue or will it die? > > 4) REALBasic > Ok, I don't know much about this, but it seems to keep popping up over > and over again on these boards. Is this another VFP waiting to happen? > Are they likely to get brought up by the big boys, consumed and then not > supported in order to move people across to their .Nets? > > > What other serious contenders are people looking at to move to as their > main language of choice? > > > Cheers for now... > > > Tristan Leask > > Software Developer > Marine Software Ltd > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.marinesoftware.co.uk > > -- > This email was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unless otherwise agreed expressly in > writing by Marine Software Limited, > this communication and attachments are to be treated as confidential > and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the > purpose for which it was sent. > If you are not the intended recipient of this communication you should > destroy it without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents. > Please notify the sender immediately of the error. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Marine Software Limited. Registered in England & Wales. No 2576494 > Regsitered Office. Unit3, Aylesham Business Pk, Aylesham. Kent. UK > -- > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Why not use standard variable names??? Always worked for me. I almost never had a problem with variable type mismatch... Derek Kalweit wrote: >> My #1 enemy in VFP is myself. I end up trying to add a string and a >> number together. In RB the compiler finds most of these issues at build >> time and saves me tons of time by keeping me from stepping on my own toes. >> > > Yes-- as all strongly typed languages will do, saving people from many > bugs. I don't have stat data, but I'd say over 50% of my bugs(mostly > caught in first-run during development, but not all) are > operator/operand type mismatch due to something like this. That and > simple typos for field names(using VariSense has almost completely > eliminated this for me for variable names), and occassionally getting > caught by a copy/paste of an object reference(this.dosomething on a > form copied to another level and should be remapped to > thisform.dosomething or similar). > > > ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
If you're THAT young, don't worry too much about it: When I was: 20 - I was training to be an engineering officer on a Nuclear (or Nukular) sub 21 - Computer Programmer 23 - Lead guitar player in an Acid Rock Band 24 - Married with child You just DON'T KNOW what life's gonna throw at you but enjoy it while it's happening!!! Cheers; Chet PS: What's this "retirement" thingie. I'm moving to Tucson, AZ, Gonnal play music, record music, make golf clubs and help my girlfriend get her Holistic Nursing practice going. Just ain't gonna program for money no more... ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On 3/23/07, Chet Gardiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 20 - I was training to be an engineering officer on a Nuclear (or > Nukular) sub Yet another thing we have in common! Electrician's Mate, Naval Nuclear Power School, Orlando, FL, Class 8005. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
You got that right! My first job: "Here's $10,000 worth of computer time Learn Fortran" (and 1401 Autocoder) 2nd job: Cobol and 360BAL 3rd Job: Gibson SG Special 4th job: Fortran and Assembler 5th Job: Cobol 6th Job: Martin 000-28 Acoustic, Fender Jazz Bass Gretch Country Gentleman 7th Job: a Hammer 8th Job: Tongs 9th Job: Cobol 10th Job: Basic 11th Job: Fortran 12th Job: Cobol, Mantis, Dyl-280, dBase etc. etc. etc. You never know... Jeff Johnson wrote: >> -Original Message- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit >> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:35 AM >> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? >> >> >>> Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on >>> >> the >> >>> Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what >>> businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest >>> >> five >> >> Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show >> at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find >> another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're >> not hiring ME. >> >> >> -- >> Derek >> >> > > I believe this is the real meat of the argument rather than what language to > use. Since I am self-employed I can choose what works best for me. If I > were to go looking for a job, that would be a different matter. When > looking for a job - years ago, I looked at what people were using and went > to school to learn it. I took COBOL and RPG classes at night. When I > landed my first job it was using Basic. > > Jeff > > Jeff Johnson > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 623-582-0323 > Fax 623-869-0675 > > > > --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- > multipart/signed > text/plain (text body -- kept) > application/x-pkcs7-signature > --- > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Ted Roche wrote: > On 3/23/07, Chet Gardiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> 20 - I was training to be an engineering officer on a Nuclear (or >> Nukular) sub > > Yet another thing we have in common! > > Electrician's Mate, Naval Nuclear Power School, Orlando, FL, Class 8005. What was the first? Well, other than the grey hair. Whil ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Chet Gardiner wrote: > You got that right! > > My first job: "Here's $10,000 worth of computer time > Learn Fortran" (and 1401 Autocoder) So, that was, what, about 7 seconds worth of time? > 2nd job: Cobol and 360BAL > 3rd Job: Gibson SG Special > 4th job: Fortran and Assembler > 5th Job: Cobol > 6th Job: Martin 000-28 Acoustic, Fender Jazz Bass > Gretch Country Gentleman > 7th Job: a Hammer > 8th Job: Tongs > 9th Job: Cobol > 10th Job: Basic > 11th Job: Fortran > 12th Job: Cobol, Mantis, Dyl-280, dBase > > etc. etc. etc. > > You never know... > > > Jeff Johnson wrote: >>> -Original Message- >>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit >>> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:35 AM >>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? >>> >>> >>>> Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on >>>> >>> the >>> >>>> Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what >>>> businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest >>>> >>> five >>> >>> Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show >>> at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find >>> another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're >>> not hiring ME. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Derek >>> >>> >> I believe this is the real meat of the argument rather than what language to >> use. Since I am self-employed I can choose what works best for me. If I >> were to go looking for a job, that would be a different matter. When >> looking for a job - years ago, I looked at what people were using and went >> to school to learn it. I took COBOL and RPG classes at night. When I >> landed my first job it was using Basic. >> >> Jeff >> >> Jeff Johnson >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> 623-582-0323 >> Fax 623-869-0675 >> >> >> >> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- >> multipart/signed >> text/plain (text body -- kept) >> application/x-pkcs7-signature >> --- >> >> [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
This is why +CodeInspector is worth the money. -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Alan Bourke <> wrote: > Whil Hentzen (Pro*) wrote: >> T >> _MY_ plan (as I've stated in public many a time, although a few >> disgruntled folks have chosen to selectively edit what I've said to >> suit their own means) is to maintain VFP for years, but not to >> invest in it. Rather, spend spare R&D time in a _growing_ market >> opportunity. >> > I think that's the way most people are looking at it. If nothing else > there will be sh!tloads of migration work for apps and data moving > away from VFP in 5-10 years time. Don't wait because it's a great martket today. Same for doing Access conversion work as well. Stephen Russell DBA / .Net Developer Memphis TN 38115 901.246-0159 "A good way to judge people is by observing how they treat those who can do them absolutely no good." ---Unknown http://spaces.msn.com/members/srussell/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.17/731 - Release Date: 3/23/2007 3:27 PM ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Jeff Fisher <> wrote: > Check out the subject line. > Others have posted what to move to but while trying to keep open > source in mind. Business aren't looking for open source solutions, > they are looking for solutions. They see .NET as a solution, not Dabo Why would they consider .NET as a solution? Stephen Russell DBA / .Net Developer Memphis TN 38115 901.246-0159 "A good way to judge people is by observing how they treat those who can do them absolutely no good." ---Unknown http://spaces.msn.com/members/srussell/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.17/731 - Release Date: 3/23/2007 3:27 PM ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Not only that you'll be well prepared for the .net to the 'next great thing' conversions in a couple of years... Stephen the Cook wrote: > Alan Bourke <> wrote: > >> Whil Hentzen (Pro*) wrote: >> >>> T >>> _MY_ plan (as I've stated in public many a time, although a few >>> disgruntled folks have chosen to selectively edit what I've said to >>> suit their own means) is to maintain VFP for years, but not to >>> invest in it. Rather, spend spare R&D time in a _growing_ market >>> opportunity. >>> >>> >> I think that's the way most people are looking at it. If nothing else >> there will be sh!tloads of migration work for apps and data moving >> away from VFP in 5-10 years time. >> > > Don't wait because it's a great martket today. Same for doing Access > conversion work as well. > > > Stephen Russell > DBA / .Net Developer > > Memphis TN 38115 > 901.246-0159 > > "A good way to judge people is by observing how they treat those who > can do them absolutely no good." ---Unknown > > http://spaces.msn.com/members/srussell/ > > ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Actually, I think it was $90 per hour of CPU clock time (single-threaded on an IBM 709 -- the Tube version of the 7094) So, doing the mathwait for it 111.1 hours... Or two months real time. My exercise was to write a (fairly simple) psuedo-machine language syntax parser and interpreter in Fortran. Great fun. Between that job and my Triumph motorcycle -- one of the best years of my life... Whil Hentzen (Pro*) wrote: > Chet Gardiner wrote: > >> You got that right! >> >> My first job: "Here's $10,000 worth of computer time >> Learn Fortran" (and 1401 Autocoder) >> > > So, that was, what, about 7 seconds worth of time? > > >> 2nd job: Cobol and 360BAL >> 3rd Job: Gibson SG Special >> 4th job: Fortran and Assembler >> 5th Job: Cobol >> 6th Job: Martin 000-28 Acoustic, Fender Jazz Bass >> Gretch Country Gentleman >> 7th Job: a Hammer >> 8th Job: Tongs >> 9th Job: Cobol >> 10th Job: Basic >> 11th Job: Fortran >> 12th Job: Cobol, Mantis, Dyl-280, dBase >> >> etc. etc. etc. >> >> You never know... >> >> >> Jeff Johnson wrote: >> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> On Behalf Of Derek Kalweit >>>> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:35 AM >>>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> Don't hit me, but I personally believe that the ads and job postings on >>>>> >>>>> >>>> the >>>> >>>> >>>>> Internet are not the best indication of the actual work force and what >>>>> businesses are using. I work for a company that is within the largest >>>>> >>>>> >>>> five >>>> >>>> Nope, and I have never professed that it did-- it does, however, show >>>> at least a significant bit of what I will be facing if I need to find >>>> another job... It doesn't matter what businesses are using if they're >>>> not hiring ME. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Derek >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> I believe this is the real meat of the argument rather than what language to >>> use. Since I am self-employed I can choose what works best for me. If I >>> were to go looking for a job, that would be a different matter. When >>> looking for a job - years ago, I looked at what people were using and went >>> to school to learn it. I took COBOL and RPG classes at night. When I >>> landed my first job it was using Basic. >>> >>> Jeff >>> >>> Jeff Johnson >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> 623-582-0323 >>> Fax 623-869-0675 >>> >>> >>> >>> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- >>> multipart/signed >>> text/plain (text body -- kept) >>> application/x-pkcs7-signature >>> --- >>> >>> >>> [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Chet Gardiner <> wrote: > Not only that you'll be well prepared for the .net to the 'next great > thing' conversions in a couple of years... I agree Chet. Life in this industry is circular at best. You learn something new. Your quality soars with that process. The new and improved version replaces it. Reeducation is needed. Repeat till retirement. It's the same thing in music, at least with the style of an artist correct? The artist gets a vision for then body of work. They create the volume of pieces needed for a release or a tour. When the promotion and or tour is completed they need a new direction for the next body of work. Stephen Russell DBA / .Net Developer Memphis TN 38115 901.246-0159 "A good way to judge people is by observing how they treat those who can do them absolutely no good." ---Unknown http://spaces.msn.com/members/srussell/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.18/733 - Release Date: 3/25/2007 11:07 AM ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On 3/25/07, Stephen the Cook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree Chet. Life in this industry is circular at best. I think it depends on which set of rules you chose to play by. > You learn something new. > Your quality soars with that process. > The new and improved version replaces it. > Reeducation is needed. > > Repeat till retirement. > Rather than circular, it cam be spiral. Some spiral up, which some spiral down. And some just go round and round in circles. I've been working with a bunch of engineers lately. They learned UNIX and emacs and C in university. They've been building on that for thirty years. They're pretty good by now. Some tools come and some tools go and some tools get better and some fall by the way side. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Art has a lot more suffering in it rather than "retraining". The hardest thing about music is "keeping fresh". There's a tendency to get to a certain level and then milk that level (in the Pro ranks anyway). That's why you see so many "reunion" tours happening lately. In general, if you're an artist, you keep playing until you die and very little of it is "planned" out. Luckily, I'm a performer and I'm not afraid to continue to improve. It'll be fun in my new environment. Believe it or not, there's a more vibrant and accessible music scene in Tucson than there is in the S.F. area -- and they pay better. Onward and Upward... C Stephen the Cook wrote: > Chet Gardiner <> wrote: > >> Not only that you'll be well prepared for the .net to the 'next great >> thing' conversions in a couple of years... >> > > I agree Chet. Life in this industry is circular at best. > > You learn something new. > Your quality soars with that process. > The new and improved version replaces it. > Reeducation is needed. > > Repeat till retirement. > > It's the same thing in music, at least with the style of an artist correct? > The artist gets a vision for then body of work. They create the volume of > pieces needed for a release or a tour. When the promotion and or tour is > completed they need a new direction for the next body of work. > > Stephen Russell > DBA / .Net Developer > > Memphis TN 38115 > 901.246-0159 > > "A good way to judge people is by observing how they treat those who > can do them absolutely no good." ---Unknown > > http://spaces.msn.com/members/srussell/ > > ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Hi all, I don't often get time to read the profox list as I'm busy with my head in code, providing solutions to problems posed by customers. I think that the thread has certainly brought up many thoughts and discussions of languages. It may be fine for a programmer who goes from company to company to pick up lots of languages and write software in them (Which is fine) but my problem is that I have applications that I have out in the Market, we have over a thousand sites/ships using our software. Prior to 2000 the company had software written in Clipper running in DOS. VFP was the natural progression to provide the software on the Windows Platform. (yes a rewrite was required from the ground up) Saying that, it took 2 years to Migrate 1 application from Clipper to VFP. We have had 9 years since the first VFP code was written. We have 6 Products that have progressed immensely since 1998. We have libraries of functions that work providing the meat of data manipulation and the interface presenting the data to the user. Many of the systems have been modified to meet user requirements. Suffice to say, that I don't think that there has been a month gone by when the software hasn't been worked on to provide a customer modification or upgrades. There are 3 full time developers working on this software. I would say that 21 Man Years are invested into our software in VFP. Granted, the software does need overhauling, made to be more oop, separate the Interface from the Data and make it work with a SQL server (any flavour) (we are still using VFP Tables!) Rewriting in VFP would be much faster as a lot of code can be copied over. We could have created the separate layers and we would have gone to version 2 of our software without a problem (well, I'm sure there would have been a couple but not too big!) Now lets look at what Microsoft have done. Driven the nail in the Coffin of VFP. They will not sell it, the will not Open Source it. The language, DBMS et al will go. At some point and they can't confirm when, their operating systems will not support the VFP runtime. Yes granted, it may be 2020 before that happens, but I'm astounded that there is not an upgrade path. If they rolled VFP into .NET then fantastic, I should imagine that we could have ported our applications. Now lets look what I face. Move all my applications over to another Language e.g. Dabo, .NET (any flavour), Python etc etc etc. This is going to mean that I have to stop the Modifications and Upgrades to my applications while I (and the rest of the team) re-write the applications (6 of them) from the ground up. This is going to cost my company at least £200,000 ($400,000) for every Year it takes to re-write (Wages / Lost potential earnings in Modifications & Upgrades). I think it will take 3 of us at least 3 years to re-write all 6 modules. 9 MAN YEARS if we are flying. The new software will not have all the modifications for clients who will one day have to move over to the New application, then there is going to be a backlash from them as I'm going to have to charge them to modify the software to do exactly what they want. We are a small company, because of Microsoft actions our profitability is going to take a big hit. Our customers are going to see a slowdown in our reaction times (which at the moment is lightning) and they will face a bill to upgrade once we have re-coded. Companies are going to have less confidence in our products because they know that Microsoft is stopping support for VFP in 2015. If we had a rough date by which time VFP will no longer work on the VFP platform at least we could reassure customers slightly. If we go over to .NET will Microsoft Kill that at some point? Can Microsoft be more specific when they will pull the Plug on VFP running on Windows Operating Systems? Here is an email that I sent to Microsoft (VFP Team) putting my concerns over to them. Below that is a response from them. *Email to Microsoft Hi, We are a small development house in the UK and we have been using VFP since 1999. We have built a suit of products all based on VFP5 and then 7. I should imagine that we will be upgrading to 9 to allow us to run with better support on Vista once Sedna is bedded in. I would like to know why Microsoft has seen fit to kill a perfectly suitable programming language. Where are we meant to go now? What language are we going to have to now develop in? Is there going to be an alternative or will Microsoft Sell VFP to another software house to keep the RDBMS and Programming Language alive? If not, is the DBMS still going to be available after 2015? Is there an alternative that we can port or code over to? After 2015, will the MS OS'es not support VFP runtime? What are plans for Operating System support for the VFP Runtime in the future? Will VFP still run after 2015
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Robert- What a well-thought-out and well-written email. Many folks have recently focused on what particular language/tool to which they "need" to switch due to recent events. Your focus on the business issues at hand is refreshing and right on target, IMHO. "There are no technical problems, only business problems." Your $400K number is very similar to the $500K number I've had as a working cost to bring our development capabilities in .NET up to par with what we can already do in VFP; and I truly believe that is a conservative number. We're a small company, and that is a big number. I can speak very clearly for our company; there will be no "conversions" to .NET with existing products and services because it makes no business sense (for us). Period. While we do occasional .NET work, we are paid for every bit of it. Same with LAMP work; same with C++ work. But most of our existing work is with VFP, and will continue as long as it makes good business sense. We have won multiple awards in the last 12 months for our work (see the news on our site) which is underpinned by VFP throughout. We will be sponsors for two VFP conferences this year (FoxForward and SWFox) and continue to grow our staff of VFP developers. Dave Bernard The Intellection Group, Inc. http://www.IntellectionGroup.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Jennings Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Hi all, I don't often get time to read the profox list as I'm busy with my head in code, providing solutions to problems posed by customers. I think that the thread has certainly brought up many thoughts and discussions of languages. It may be fine for a programmer who goes from company to company to pick up lots of languages and write software in them (Which is fine) but my problem is that I have applications that I have out in the Market, we have over a thousand sites/ships using our software. Prior to 2000 the company had software written in Clipper running in DOS. VFP was the natural progression to provide the software on the Windows Platform. (yes a rewrite was required from the ground up) Saying that, it took 2 years to Migrate 1 application from Clipper to VFP. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED]@comcast.net ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Dave, What happens when VFP will no longer run on Windows? You can't expect users to run old and unsupported Operating Systems. The Bean Counters will never allow it. Ditto to the Big Number point. I think I've been rather conservative too! :o( You certainly have taken your hand to many area's and the awards are well deserved. We are concentrating on a part of the market that the company was founded in and key members of staff have many, many, many years in that area. "Know the user, know the task!" (boy does that saying keep rattling around in my head!) We will have to migrate somewhere as we want to be around providing our customers our unique products for many many years to come. Each system we sell has a possible 20-30 year lifespan! If I can keep everything in VFP then I'll be very happy but I just don't think that is possible. However, can these provide a ray of light? http://www.etecnologia.net/ http://www.vulcandotnet.com/ Surely keeping the status quo with my software and compiling into a .NET app surely is the least painful path? This will ensure I can spend time providing solutions to my customers with the Fantastic Tool that is VFP. Regards Robert Jennings Development and Computer Services Manager Marine Software -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Bernard Posted At: 02 April 2007 17:56 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Robert- What a well-thought-out and well-written email. Many folks have recently focused on what particular language/tool to which they "need" to switch due to recent events. Your focus on the business issues at hand is refreshing and right on target, IMHO. "There are no technical problems, only business problems." Your $400K number is very similar to the $500K number I've had as a working cost to bring our development capabilities in .NET up to par with what we can already do in VFP; and I truly believe that is a conservative number. We're a small company, and that is a big number. I can speak very clearly for our company; there will be no "conversions" to .NET with existing products and services because it makes no business sense (for us). Period. While we do occasional .NET work, we are paid for every bit of it. Same with LAMP work; same with C++ work. But most of our existing work is with VFP, and will continue as long as it makes good business sense. We have won multiple awards in the last 12 months for our work (see the news on our site) which is underpinned by VFP throughout. We will be sponsors for two VFP conferences this year (FoxForward and SWFox) and continue to grow our staff of VFP developers. Dave Bernard The Intellection Group, Inc. http://www.IntellectionGroup.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Jennings Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Hi all, I don't often get time to read the profox list as I'm busy with my head in code, providing solutions to problems posed by customers. I think that the thread has certainly brought up many thoughts and discussions of languages. It may be fine for a programmer who goes from company to company to pick up lots of languages and write software in them (Which is fine) but my problem is that I have applications that I have out in the Market, we have over a thousand sites/ships using our software. Prior to 2000 the company had software written in Clipper running in DOS. VFP was the natural progression to provide the software on the Windows Platform. (yes a rewrite was required from the ground up) Saying that, it took 2 years to Migrate 1 application from Clipper to VFP. [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> > What happens when VFP will no longer run on Windows? You can't expect > users to run old and unsupported Operating Systems. The Bean Counters > will never allow it. > During a M$ Vista Rollout presentation our folks from M$ advised that "all you have to do is use Virtual PC 2007". Uhm, let me see. I have to use Vista (or whatever replaces it in 12 years), and license XP, and beef the PC up something fierce to run VPC to get my older stuff to run? Then again, it is a viable solution other than the additional license and hardware (RAM) cost. If I am going to do all that why not just use Linux with VMWare Server running 2000 Pro and call it a day? Or, better yet, for those apps I can handle VFP compiled apps under Linux, use Crossover Office/WINE? M$ has certainly left a lot of questions hanging for the relatively small (hence insignificant) group of folks who have chosen to remain VFP coders. Like several others on this list, I have a large investment in my VFP apps, and to maintain my current apps, while recoding in Dabo, is no small chore. Very expensive in terms of delayed turnarounds for custom requests from clients, and I can't really pursue new clients (abandoned opportunity revenue/profit) if I undertake a mass migration. Then again, this may be the least bad time for me to bite the bullet, before I do grow too large to even consider a migration. My migration direction at this point looks like it will be PostgreSQL on the back end (Zero License Fees, commercial use or otherwise) and Dabo & Python for the Front End. Gil > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Robert Jennings > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 1:35 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Dave, > > What happens when VFP will no longer run on Windows? You can't expect > users to run old and unsupported Operating Systems. The Bean Counters > will never allow it. > > Ditto to the Big Number point. I think I've been rather conservative > too! :o( > > You certainly have taken your hand to many area's and the awards are > well deserved. > > We are concentrating on a part of the market that the company was > founded in and key members of staff have many, many, many years in that > area. "Know the user, know the task!" (boy does that saying keep > rattling around in my head!) > > We will have to migrate somewhere as we want to be around providing our > customers our unique products for many many years to come. Each system > we sell has a possible 20-30 year lifespan! > > If I can keep everything in VFP then I'll be very happy but I just don't > think that is possible. However, can these provide a ray of light? > > http://www.etecnologia.net/ > http://www.vulcandotnet.com/ > > Surely keeping the status quo with my software and compiling into a .NET > app surely is the least painful path? This will ensure I can spend time > providing solutions to my customers with the Fantastic Tool that is VFP. > > Regards > > > Robert Jennings > Development and Computer Services Manager > Marine Software > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Dave Bernard > Posted At: 02 April 2007 17:56 > Posted To: Profox Archive > Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? > Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Robert- > > What a well-thought-out and well-written email. > > Many folks have recently focused on what particular language/tool to > which they "need" to switch due to recent events. Your focus on the > business issues at hand is refreshing and right on target, IMHO. "There > are no technical problems, only business problems." > > Your $400K number is very similar to the $500K number I've had as a > working cost to bring our development capabilities in .NET up to par > with what we can already do in VFP; and I truly believe that is a > conservative number. > We're a small company, and that is a big number. > > I can speak very clearly for our company; there will be no "conversions" > to .NET with existing products and services because it makes no business > sense (for us). Period. > > While we do occasional .NET work, we are paid for every bit of it. Same > with LAMP work; same with C++ work. > > But most of our existing work is with VFP, and will continue as long as > it makes good business sense. We have won multiple awards in the last 12 > months for our work (see the news on our site) which is underpinned by > VFP throughout. We will be sponsors for two VFP conferences this year > (FoxForward and SWFox) and continue
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Robert- A while back, we decided to get heavy into web development, using VFP as the middle tier. With that in mind, I really only have to worry about browser compatibility, which really doesn't involve VFP. And, if I'm hosting the app, which is what we do most of the time, we control that infrastructure platform and can keep it as old as we like ;) On the other hand, seven more years is a long time to prepare for change. Vista itself will be supported beyond that, so VFP 9 SP 2 should run at least another good solid 10 years, which is plenty of life time for any software project. I also believe that, with so many existing users on a variety of OS versions, virtual machine support for "legacy OS's" will be a booming cottage industry, especially for smart folks like yourself, enabling us to go even longer. The only real downside is just finding good talent. However, that is a problem in all software development areas, even .NET, and it is a problem world-wide. I think that we will be investing in training folks more and more as time goes on. To me, .NET is unproven. They haven't put two versions out in a row that are compatible with each other. Performance is slowly improving, but the framework lacks basic functionality that VFP developers have relied on for many years; LINQ is a step in the right direction. Again, it's like anything else, you have to be ready to invest quite a bit of time and money, and take on substantial risk, in switching horses. I have personal experience trying to get managed and unmanaged code working together, and it was disastrous from an investment point of view. I can't comment on the two compiler products you mentioned; I don't think they would be attractive to me because (1) I already have a compiler and (2) I control the VFP platform OS to a great extent. The bottom line: there are no sure things, no guarantees, right? If you suddenly invest $1M over 5 years in .NET, what happens when they replace that, as they surely will? Microsoft's revenue goals are at odds with developer's revenue goals; Microsoft makes money on "tool churn" and we make money building long-lasting stable business solutions. I think your question to Microsoft (or LAMP or Dabo or ???) should be: OK, sounds great, but how do I sell that to my customer, who, by the way, loves what I've already built them (not to mention the fact that they already paid for it)? Dave -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Jennings Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 1:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Dave, What happens when VFP will no longer run on Windows? You can't expect users to run old and unsupported Operating Systems. The Bean Counters will never allow it. Ditto to the Big Number point. I think I've been rather conservative too! :o( You certainly have taken your hand to many area's and the awards are well deserved. We are concentrating on a part of the market that the company was founded in and key members of staff have many, many, many years in that area. "Know the user, know the task!" (boy does that saying keep rattling around in my head!) We will have to migrate somewhere as we want to be around providing our customers our unique products for many many years to come. Each system we sell has a possible 20-30 year lifespan! If I can keep everything in VFP then I'll be very happy but I just don't think that is possible. However, can these provide a ray of light? http://www.etecnologia.net/ http://www.vulcandotnet.com/ Surely keeping the status quo with my software and compiling into a .NET app surely is the least painful path? This will ensure I can spend time providing solutions to my customers with the Fantastic Tool that is VFP. Regards Robert Jennings Development and Computer Services Manager Marine Software -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Bernard Posted At: 02 April 2007 17:56 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Robert- What a well-thought-out and well-written email. Many folks have recently focused on what particular language/tool to which they "need" to switch due to recent events. Your focus on the business issues at hand is refreshing and right on target, IMHO. "There are no technical problems, only business problems." Your $400K number is very similar to the $500K number I've had as a working cost to bring our development capabilities in .NET up to par with what we can already do in VFP; and I truly believe that is a conservative number. We're a small company, and that is a big number. I can speak very clearly for our company; there will be no "conversions" to .NET with existing products and services b
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Excellent post, Robert! Thanks for the thoughtful message. On 4/2/07, Robert Jennings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Granted, the software does need overhauling, So does every major application I've ever worked on ;) > but I'm astounded that there is not an upgrade path. I think, more than anything else, MS does not appreicate the level of effort that goes into applications built on top of their platforms. Companies like Symantec and Adobe and Oracle struggle to keep up. Smaller companies with longer timeframes and tight margins just can't keep up with the twists and turns, and perhaps they should not. > Now lets look what I face. > Move all my applications over to another Language e.g. Dabo, .NET (any > flavour), Python etc etc etc. > This is going to mean that I have to stop the Modifications and Upgrades to > my applications while I (and the rest of the team) re-write the applications > (6 of them) from the ground up. This is going to cost my company at least > £200,000 ($400,000) for every Year it takes to re-write (Wages / Lost > potential earnings in Modifications & Upgrades). I think it will take 3 of us > at least 3 years to re-write all 6 modules. 9 MAN YEARS if we are flying. So, double it as a contingency. > We are a small company, because of Microsoft actions our profitability is > going to take a big hit. Our customers are going to see a slowdown in our > reaction times (which at the moment is lightning) and they will face a bill > to upgrade once we have re-coded. Companies are going to have less confidence > in our products because they know that Microsoft is stopping support for VFP > in 2015. If we had a rough date by which time VFP will no longer work on the > VFP platform at least we could reassure customers slightly. > It's been my experience that most of my customers were not able to slow down their responsiveness to existing customers while taking on the major new Dot-Oh version of the product in a new environment, whether that was FP 2 DOS to 2.6 Windows, FP 2.x to VFP 5 (luckily we all skipped 3!) or VFP to whatever-comes-next. It certainly makes the budget difficult to work out. Too little responsiveness or a sense from your customers that your future is uncertain, and they flock to a competitor. It's best to get ahead of this by promoting a future roadmap. > If we go over to .NET will Microsoft Kill that at some point? I think you already know the answer to this one, Robert. DotNet is just MS' latest means of extracting a continous revenue stream from their customers. There has to be another one; that's how they operate. I really see this open a wider question: is it feasible, practical and wise to base a 10- to 20-year product development cycle on a set of development tools that are single-sourced from any vendor? I've come to the conclusion it is not. Best of fortunes with your business, Ted -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Robert Jennings wrote: > > > > > Your thoughts on all of the above will be appreciated. > > > Robert Jennings Well, you should have in mind it's not my ass in the line. Having said that, I would consider 10 years from now is long enough time to do an orderly retreat. I would not consider migration right now, plenty of time. What I would consider is to make my apps three tiered and let the data tier be a multi platform non proprietary server. This would be no extra cost as you are improving your software and you may keep updates and modifications coming as required. Five years from now, when your apps are already multi tiered (and Dabo the new industry standard ;c) ), you'll be able to decide where to best migrate. If the tool is also multi platform you need not stop your production pace, you just take your apps to the new tool one at a time (you can always call the new exe's from VFP menus) as customer's requirements make it convenient to port. Eventually, when most of your code is ported, you can change platforms if it suits you. In short, there's enough time to do it orderly, and it needs not be overly expensive. Hope it helps. ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Robert Jennings wrote: > Your thoughts on all of the above will be appreciated. I wonder if they would guarantee that apps written in .Net today will run on the current OS in 2015. My feeling is that if your app is working, there is no need to panic and abandon all that good, solid code because they finally made official what many of us have sensed for quite some time. Given the number of really smart people who use Fox, I'll bet that even if Microsoft doesn't do it, someone will figure out a way to make VFP run on future OSs. Remember, the fast CPU fix didn't come from Microsoft, but it enabled old Fox 2.x apps to run on hardware well past the lives of the products. Also, just how much faith would you put in a promise from Microsoft? My feeling is that as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line they would keep it, but they'd have no problem "writing it off" if conditions changed. I learned that after the VFP/Mac beta, after spending a lot of time getting things working and tracking down bugs, they released a known buggy product and then refused to commit to patching the bugs they acknowledged just a few months prior. IOW, their word is as good as their business cash flow. Personally, I would begin planning for a transition to something that will take you through the next decade or two. That's a long time for any product, but it's also precisely why I think that .Net is the worst choice you can make. In the mid-90s Microsoft was strongly pushing their COM model as the way to go, only to dump it a few years later for .Net. There is no reason not to think that in a few years they'll come up with yet another trendily-named product, and tell you that unless you move all your code to this platform, you'll be a dinosaur. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Robert Jennings wrote: > Dave, > > What happens when VFP will no longer run on Windows? You can't expect > users to run old and unsupported Operating Systems. The Bean Counters > will never allow it. > My experience has been primarily in the automotive industry and there is a very good decision making criteria that is used pretty universally called the five whys. Wee need to re-write all of our existing code base in .NET potentially costing hundreds of thousand or even millions of dollars. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Can you answer those 5 questions? > Ditto to the Big Number point. I think I've been rather conservative > too! :o( > > You certainly have taken your hand to many area's and the awards are > well deserved. > > We are concentrating on a part of the market that the company was > founded in and key members of staff have many, many, many years in that > area. "Know the user, know the task!" (boy does that saying keep > rattling around in my head!) > > We will have to migrate somewhere as we want to be around providing our > customers our unique products for many many years to come. Each system > we sell has a possible 20-30 year lifespan! > > If I can keep everything in VFP then I'll be very happy but I just don't > think that is possible. However, can these provide a ray of light? > > http://www.etecnologia.net/ > http://www.vulcandotnet.com/ > > Surely keeping the status quo with my software and compiling into a .NET > app surely is the least painful path? This will ensure I can spend time > providing solutions to my customers with the Fantastic Tool that is VFP. > > Regards > > > Robert Jennings > Development and Computer Services Manager > Marine Software > > > > > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Dave Bernard > Posted At: 02 April 2007 17:56 > Posted To: Profox Archive > Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? > Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > > > Robert- > > What a well-thought-out and well-written email. > > Many folks have recently focused on what particular language/tool to > which they "need" to switch due to recent events. Your focus on the > business issues at hand is refreshing and right on target, IMHO. "There > are no technical problems, only business problems." > > Your $400K number is very similar to the $500K number I've had as a > working cost to bring our development capabilities in .NET up to par > with what we can already do in VFP; and I truly believe that is a > conservative number. > We're a small company, and that is a big number. > > I can speak very clearly for our company; there will be no "conversions" > to .NET with existing products and services because it makes no business > sense (for us). Period. > > While we do occasional .NET work, we are paid for every bit of it. Same > with LAMP work; same with C++ work. > > But most of our existing work is with VFP, and will continue as long as > it makes good business sense. We have won multiple awards in the last 12 > months for our work (see the news on our site) which is underpinned by > VFP throughout. We will be sponsors for two VFP conferences this year > (FoxForward and SWFox) and continue to grow our staff of VFP developers. > > > Dave Bernard > The Intellection Group, Inc. > http://www.IntellectionGroup.com > > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Robert Jennings > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:30 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > > Hi all, > > I don't often get time to read the profox list as I'm busy with my head > in code, providing solutions to problems posed by customers. > > I think that the thread has certainly brought up many thoughts and > discussions of languages. It may be fine for a programmer who goes from > company to company to pick up lots of languages and write software in > them (Which is fine) but my problem is that I have applications that I > have out in the Market, we have over a thousand sites/ships using our > software. > > Prior to 2000 the company had software written in Clipper running in > DOS. > VFP was the natural progression to provide the software on the Windows > Platform. (yes a rewrite was required from the ground up) Saying that, > it took 2 years to Migrate 1 application from Clipper to VFP. > ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Ed, I hear you! It's just, I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. Otherwise they may loose confidence in us as a company and go elsewhere! Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. Now Microsoft have to re-write office 2007 in Java from the ground up. Office will be about £1500 a copy and people will not buy it. Robert Jennings -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Posted At: 02 April 2007 21:26 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Robert Jennings wrote: > Your thoughts on all of the above will be appreciated. I wonder if they would guarantee that apps written in .Net today will run on the current OS in 2015. My feeling is that if your app is working, there is no need to panic and abandon all that good, solid code because they finally made official what many of us have sensed for quite some time. Given the number of really smart people who use Fox, I'll bet that even if Microsoft doesn't do it, someone will figure out a way to make VFP run on future OSs. Remember, the fast CPU fix didn't come from Microsoft, but it enabled old Fox 2.x apps to run on hardware well past the lives of the products. Also, just how much faith would you put in a promise from Microsoft? My feeling is that as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line they would keep it, but they'd have no problem "writing it off" if conditions changed. I learned that after the VFP/Mac beta, after spending a lot of time getting things working and tracking down bugs, they released a known buggy product and then refused to commit to patching the bugs they acknowledged just a few months prior. IOW, their word is as good as their business cash flow. Personally, I would begin planning for a transition to something that will take you through the next decade or two. That's a long time for any product, but it's also precisely why I think that .Net is the worst choice you can make. In the mid-90s Microsoft was strongly pushing their COM model as the way to go, only to dump it a few years later for .Net. There is no reason not to think that in a few years they'll come up with yet another trendily-named product, and tell you that unless you move all your code to this platform, you'll be a dinosaur. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Robert, That sounds like the perfect marketing plan for Microsoft, and it WOULD work if they disable everyone's C# applications - which according to the EULA they could well do! Well that's stirred things up. Dave Crozier -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Jennings Sent: 03 April 2007 09:58 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? Ed, I hear you! It's just, I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. Otherwise they may loose confidence in us as a company and go elsewhere! Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. Now Microsoft have to re-write office 2007 in Java from the ground up. Office will be about £1500 a copy and people will not buy it. Robert Jennings -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Posted At: 02 April 2007 21:26 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Robert Jennings wrote: > Your thoughts on all of the above will be appreciated. I wonder if they would guarantee that apps written in .Net today will run on the current OS in 2015. My feeling is that if your app is working, there is no need to panic and abandon all that good, solid code because they finally made official what many of us have sensed for quite some time. Given the number of really smart people who use Fox, I'll bet that even if Microsoft doesn't do it, someone will figure out a way to make VFP run on future OSs. Remember, the fast CPU fix didn't come from Microsoft, but it enabled old Fox 2.x apps to run on hardware well past the lives of the products. Also, just how much faith would you put in a promise from Microsoft? My feeling is that as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line they would keep it, but they'd have no problem "writing it off" if conditions changed. I learned that after the VFP/Mac beta, after spending a lot of time getting things working and tracking down bugs, they released a known buggy product and then refused to commit to patching the bugs they acknowledged just a few months prior. IOW, their word is as good as their business cash flow. Personally, I would begin planning for a transition to something that will take you through the next decade or two. That's a long time for any product, but it's also precisely why I think that .Net is the worst choice you can make. In the mid-90s Microsoft was strongly pushing their COM model as the way to go, only to dump it a few years later for .Net. There is no reason not to think that in a few years they'll come up with yet another trendily-named product, and tell you that unless you move all your code to this platform, you'll be a dinosaur. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> if they disable everyone's C# applications - which according to the EULA > they could well do! Does it? > Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# Highly unlikely. > > Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. Highly unlikely. -- Alan Bourke [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Alan, If you look in the VFP EULA: "Section 4. You may not: * work around technical limitations in the software ..." I think you must admit that this is the equivalent of disabling your software i.e you can't use it legally, and it covers a number of other scenarios. All Microsoft have to do is to place a "technical limitation" on the software - whatever that means to them at the time. Yes, I admit that this would be unlikely (I hope) but it shows what you agree to when you accept the EULA. Just what is a "Technical Limitation"? Dave Crozier -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 03 April 2007 10:36 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > if they disable everyone's C# applications - which according to the EULA > they could well do! Does it? > Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# Highly unlikely. > > Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. Highly unlikely. -- Alan Bourke [EMAIL PROTECTED] [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
UK law (which overrides the EULA :0 ) says that you can reverse engineer any software to resolve a bug. The killer is that you dont own the tools just licence them and they have the right to cancel your licence at any time for any reason. This is the same for nearly all business software (in volume terms very little is released outside this licencing model yet). In the UK you can challenge this as being punitive but I dont know of a case going to court. I knew those FAST courses were good for something! -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Michael, Have you got big enough pockets to take a test case to court? I guess not and that is where M$ will always win out - unfortunately. Dave Crozier -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Hawksworth Sent: 03 April 2007 11:38 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? UK law (which overrides the EULA :0 ) says that you can reverse engineer any software to resolve a bug. The killer is that you dont own the tools just licence them and they have the right to cancel your licence at any time for any reason. This is the same for nearly all business software (in volume terms very little is released outside this licencing model yet). In the UK you can challenge this as being punitive but I dont know of a case going to court. I knew those FAST courses were good for something! -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
On Apr 3, 2007, at 4:58 AM, Robert Jennings wrote: > It's just, I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of > where we are going. Otherwise they may loose confidence in us as a > company and go elsewhere! > > Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# > > Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. > > Now Microsoft have to re-write office 2007 in Java from the ground up. > > Office will be about £1500 a copy and people will not buy it. That's exactly why I feel so strongly about investing my development efforts into open source tools. Many of the sycophants here like to think it's because I "hate" Microsoft, but it's actually because it just makes good business sense. Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, can't "remove support" for Python on Windows. They don't control Python. Even if the primary group developing Python decided not to support an OS, the source is available with no license burdens, and there would be enough financial incentive for someone to make it compatible. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
> I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. Don't Panic Mr Jennings! imho you're getting het up for no reason. Trust me, your customers do *not* want to think about what may happen after 2015 or 2020 or 2025; if you don't mention it they almost certainly won't ask - if the do just refer them to: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselect where they will find out that all things ms are ephemeral - you are safer with vfp than you are with VB6 - and most of the sme solutions in the world are written in that (and fwiw extended support for 'Visual Studio 2005' ends in 2016). Andrew Davies MBCS CITP - AndyD 8-)# ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any queries. ** ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
Agreed. 98% of customers will start to worry only if/when the software can't run on whatever new OS MS have introduced - ie 2015+ Andy Davies wrote: >> I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. > > Don't Panic Mr Jennings! > > imho you're getting het up for no reason. Trust me, your customers do *not* > want to think about what may happen after 2015 or 2020 or 2025; if you > don't mention it they almost certainly won't ask - if the do just refer > them to: > http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselect > > where they will find out that all things ms are ephemeral - you are safer > with vfp than you are with VB6 - and most of the sme solutions in the world > are written in that (and fwiw extended support for 'Visual Studio 2005' > ends in 2016). > > Andrew Davies MBCS CITP > - AndyD8-)# > > > ** > > This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended > solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If > you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. > > This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by > MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. > > Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any queries. > > ** > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
I guess the only thing for it is to write everything in C Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all OS written in C? You should then be able to compile your app to run in every OS. Problem is C doesn't have native Database handling. 4GL's enabled most of us to deliver products to the world at reasonable cost. VFP allowed us to deliver excellent database applications as it was and is a 1 stop shop. You can do everything you want to in VFP. The problem is, there is no sure fire system that we can put our hands on our hearts and say, Yes, in 2050 this 4GL programming language will still be around and running on OS's out there. If you read all these "RE: Another Life after VFP thread?" mails most people are looking at something different, some .Net, Python, Dabo, Lamp and others I cannot remember but are in the posts. Every single option has it's drawbacks. VFP came from good stock. It allowed access to Databases (DBF's) I can open a table that I created in dbase in 1992 and I'm sure you all will be able to go back further. I know that we can run XP in a Virtual PC well into the future, but will customers want to do that? I think not. We won't be allowed to run a VFP on Linux and the replacement to Vista might have removed support for the VFP runtime. 2015 isn't that far away in the scheme of things specially when a rewrite is on the horizon. Robert Jennings -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Posted At: 03 April 2007 11:52 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Apr 3, 2007, at 4:58 AM, Robert Jennings wrote: > It's just, I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where > we are going. Otherwise they may loose confidence in us as a company > and go elsewhere! > > Just imagine that Microsoft write Office 2007 in C# > > Now Microsoft remove support for C# from Windows. > > Now Microsoft have to re-write office 2007 in Java from the ground up. > > Office will be about £1500 a copy and people will not buy it. That's exactly why I feel so strongly about investing my development efforts into open source tools. Many of the sycophants here like to think it's because I "hate" Microsoft, but it's actually because it just makes good business sense. Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, can't "remove support" for Python on Windows. They don't control Python. Even if the primary group developing Python decided not to support an OS, the source is available with no license burdens, and there would be enough financial incentive for someone to make it compatible. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
Andy, We have already had one comment on it and they asked us what we are going to do about it! Robert -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andy Davies Posted At: 03 April 2007 12:12 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: RE: Another life after VFP thread? > I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. Don't Panic Mr Jennings! imho you're getting het up for no reason. Trust me, your customers do *not* want to think about what may happen after 2015 or 2020 or 2025; if you don't mention it they almost certainly won't ask - if the do just refer them to: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselect where they will find out that all things ms are ephemeral - you are safer with vfp than you are with VB6 - and most of the sme solutions in the world are written in that (and fwiw extended support for 'Visual Studio 2005' ends in 2016). Andrew Davies MBCS CITP - AndyD 8-)# ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any queries. ** [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
RE: Another life after VFP thread?
The problem is, that will I get 6 years warning so I can rewrite all my software? I think not. I know that I'm not going to get a copy of Dabo and start recoding this weekend. But I think by 2010 I need to start what ever it is that I'm going to do. Also, more importantly, what does "IMHO" mean ? Robert -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Abbott Posted At: 03 April 2007 12:21 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? Agreed. 98% of customers will start to worry only if/when the software can't run on whatever new OS MS have introduced - ie 2015+ Andy Davies wrote: >> I'm going to have to give my customers a roadmap of where we are going. > > Don't Panic Mr Jennings! > > imho you're getting het up for no reason. Trust me, your customers do > *not* want to think about what may happen after 2015 or 2020 or 2025; > if you don't mention it they almost certainly won't ask - if the do > just refer them to: > http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselect > > where they will find out that all things ms are ephemeral - you are > safer with vfp than you are with VB6 - and most of the sme solutions > in the world are written in that (and fwiw extended support for 'Visual Studio 2005' > ends in 2016). > > Andrew Davies MBCS CITP > - AndyD8-)# > > > ** > > This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. > > This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. > > Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any queries. > > ** > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
Re: Another life after VFP thread?
That doesn't hold. I produce product road maps for the next 5 or 10 years by default and are revised every so many milestones so someone looking to depreciate a core development over 10 years with a business window for the product of maybe double that would be a little wound up by their development tool going off list half way through. Companies decision makers can understand that a product will be replaced by another (VS2003/VS2005/VS2007 etc etc) and some even understand the open source (e.g. python approach) but you can't tell them to just 'trust me it will be OK'. If for no other reason my insurance wouldn't cover it! Of Products that are already out there some need replacing by other systems, some recoding into c#/python etc., some need to die a quiet death. But most organisations will defer this decision until the last minute if they can but you (we) can't afford to do that as the day it dies is the day you need to have a solution to hand. vfp failed to be fully working for Vista with the resources available and they will be diminished greatly over the years to come. Are you confident enough that Vista SP1 or SP2 wont introduce something that kills your app? Telling your customer that it will be a few weeks before they can open that form is just not going to work. It is 2007 now, how long ago does the millennium seem? Now how long is 2015 away? -- Regards Michael. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
