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The
Other
Foxbase
by Charles Williams
The primary reason for
creating a
user group is to provide better oppor-
tunities for sharing information and
ideas among people with similar
backgrounds and interests. The LA
Fox group intends to provide sharing
opportunities for several com-
munities of interest, including the
Foxbase Mac community. As the
“Mac member” of the Steering Com-
mittee and writer of this monthly Mac
column, I will act as a focal point for
communication and action within the
Mac group. I’m anxious to know
what kinds of things you would like to
see at our monthly meetings, what
kind of information you are inter-
ested in, and what kind of interaction
would be useful to you.
To get the conversation started
here are some of my ideas.
1
Since microcomputer
database systems using Foxbase can
be used beneficially for such a wide
diversity of environments and pur-
poses, I think presentations about
what kind of results have been
achieved (rather than technical
details on how the result was
achieved) provide a useful stimulant
to the imagination of both developers
and end-users. I believe that Mac
users can gain this kind of insight
from hearing about FoxPro and Fox-
base/PC applications, and vice versa.
2-- Foxbase has a very rich set of
commands and tools which takes a
long time to master. Those of us who
develop applications are interested in
exploring programming and develop-
ment techniques with others who are
further up the learning curve. I
believe the systems are similar
enough that Mac developers can
learn from listening to FoxPro and
Foxbase/PC developers and vice
versa
--
I certainly learned a lot from
the Tom Rettig and Richard
Grossman FoxPro presentations.
3
--
There are a myriad of factors
that influence the performance of
database systems, and in fact there
are many definitions of what con-
stitutes good performance. It gets
particularly complex and fuzzy in a
multi-user situation. Since perfor-
mance is a Foxbase strong point,
presentations on that topic should be
informative to all. Many folks in the
industry don’t think about the Mac as
a database machine, so an interesting
question for us to explore is how Fox-
base performance on the Mac com-
pares to the PC.
4
--
Since Foxbase is a leader in
cross-platform products in an in-
creasingly mixed personal computing
environment, we have a unique op-
portunity to develop an under-
standing of what is really practical.
That is, how much and what kind of
work is involved in moving an ap-
plication from Mac to PC or PC to
Mac, what are the limitations, and
how does one design for this even-
tuality.
5
--
The design of database sys-
tems is probably more difficult, con-
troversial, and important than
programming them. This is an area
where end-users should be an active
participant with their developer. I
think there are several design topics
that would be of equal interest to all
of us
Mac and PC, end-user and
developer and would thus be good
candidates for monthly meetings.
6 I believe that loosely struc-
tured and highly interactive meetings
with lots of free-flowing questions
and answers are much more benefi-
cial than formalized and flashy
“product presentations”.
We need ideas, suggestions, and
arguments from the Mac community
to make this an effective user group.
Please give me a call or talk to me at
the monthly meeting-- let’s make this
work to our advantage, rather than
ride along in the background as a
silent minority.
Charles Ls
Secretary
for the
L.A.
Fox
Steering Committee. He
can
be
reached by voice phone at (213) 539-
9439;
orbyfax at (213)325-3584; orby
mail at
977 Ashbridge
Lane, Harbor
City CA
90710.
FoxPro Under
Windows
by
Greg Dunn
Although FoxPro runs under Win-
dows 3, those attempting to run
it
on
networks have encountered RAM
CRAM. With network drivers and
other necessary TSR’s loaded in
regular DOS memory along with Fox-
Pro, there isn’t enough space left to
do much real work.
Those accustomed to using
Quarterdeck’s QEMM to load
drivers in high memory have been dis-
appointed to discover that the current
version of QEMM is incompatible
with Windows 3.0. But Quarterdeck,
coming quickly to the rescue, has al-
ready announced QEMM 5.1, a Win-
dows-compatible version, due for
release later this month!
CHARLES H. WILLIAMS
Introduction to xBase Programming
MACINTOSH CONSULTANT
Macintosh Expertise plus Management Expertise
213 539-9439
977 Ashbridge Lane, Harbor City, California, 90710
Dialect-independent “hands-on” instruction in
dBase language programming for those wanting to
work in Foxbase, FoxPro, dBase
III+
dBase
IV,
Clipper, or other “xBase” dialects.
Call for more information’
Greg Dunn Associates
(213)
371-6035
LA. FOX
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