The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

January 1994

XPro

continued from first page

Microsoft has put forward the following

positioning for their database development

products, with some paraphrasing for easy

comprehension:

1. Access is a tool for power users who need

to query data and build applications by them-

selves.

2.Visual Basic is a general purpose Windows

development tool with some database capa-

bilities.

3. FoxPro is the tool of choice for “data” ori-

ented applications, now and in the future.

if you have listened to Microsoft sales reps

you may not have gotten this message

because there is an apparent lag in the sales

force’s understanding of Microsoft’s posi-

tion.

This positioning has an obvious weakness

when WAN throughput calls for a client-

server solution. Many people and organiza-

tions have opted for Visual Basic as a front-

end with SQL Server or a non-Microsoft

backend as the solution of choice. Enter the

promised FoxPro 3.0.

FoxPro 3.0 will not only be object based (or

oriented, depending on who you listen to)

but will have a data dictionary and “client-

server”. What that client-server capability

will look like, at this point in time, is known

only to Microsofties. Whether that will be

more tightly integrated ODBC links or trans-

parent links to SQL Server or a new technol-

ogy based on a WANable FoxPro Rushmore

engine is anybody’s guess. My guess is that

it will transparently translate FoxPro Xbase

commands, as well as SQL statements, into

server table commands. This will make

upsizing existing FoxPro applications possi-

ble at all, in a practical sense. Borland has

already’taken this approach with Paradox for

Windows and their Interbase Server and pur-

portedly will also do with dBASE for Win-

dows when it is released. This is why you

may see Borland promotional material with

the phrase “Borland, the upsizing company”.

The best bright spot in the waiting for the 3.0

game is the optimism expressed by

Microsofties and in-the-know adherents that

they will go into early beta perhaps as soon

as March and may deliver as early as July.

That seems a bit optimistic but their focus of

effort has been among the best in the busi-

ness. The key phrase there was “main focus

of effort”, which excludes peripherally

focused products like FoxPro Mac and Unix,

until they become the “main focus” of effort.

Last Meeting

As promised, a discussion of the Codebook

2.5 foundation was held. Besides offering a

solid event-driven model with decent perfor-

mance, Codebook also uses a procedural

data dictionary and cross platform tool bars.

For a more in-depth discussion you should

come to the meetings!

Next Meeting

Bruce Braunstein, editor of FoxMasters on-

disk magazine for FoxPro developers, will

be showing some of the techniques he used

in putting together the program for his on-

disk magazine. Bruce has been a recognized

Xbase adherent for many years, writing

books and articles on dBASE, Clipper, and

FoxPro. This should be an interesting discus-

sion, so come prepared to ask questions!