The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

March 1994

XPro User Group News (con’t from Page 5)

sibilities are changing or reinforcing my various

points of view. I’m perfectly serious when I say I

have become precisely the stereotype of the

person this committee is doing the work for. I can’t

afford to let my preferences or prejudices make

decisions for me. The users of Clipper apps are

just as important as users of FoxPro or Paradox or

Informix or AS400, etc. apps. I can’t just say “I like

product X so let’s migrate all non-X apps to X”

without considering the costs and problems.

Sb: Xbase Standard

Fm: DBADVISO REP 143598

To: Jeff Winchell 76066,533

Jeff,

>>.. .why would someone want to upgrade their

Xbase product to run old code unless it offers a

performance improvement?

Besides performance, there is the need for Client]

Server architecture (do to WAN and LAN through-

put consderations). My basic hope for many Xbase

products is that the vendors will realize the impor-

tance of this as well as the value of making this

possible with little change to the syntax or code of

most existing Xbase apps. It would be nice, for

instance, if dBASE or FoxPro apps, could be

turned to client/server architecture with nothing

more (in terms of code changes) than setting up a

parameter in the CON FIG.DB/FP file that would

point table and index commands to the server. As

a MIS manager in a difficult situtation, I’d tend to

favor the major Xbase product that made it that

easy.

FoxPro 2.6 (con’t from Page 4)

eliminate “SKU-confusion” on the retail side of the

product. Registered users of the product will be

provided an upgrade path so that they may up-

grade to 2.6 without having to purchase the entire

Professional version.

What follows are excerpts from the press release:

“... Helpful wizards step you through common

tasks that make building screens, reports, and

graphs, as easy as a few mouse clicks! And

advanced tools for developers make it easy to

create applications without limits.”

FoxPro 2.6 (con’t from previous column)

“... HIGHLIGHTS

“Flexible, interactive tools offer easy access to rela-

tional database power.

Take advantage of Screen Wizards, Report Wiz-

ards, and Application Wizards - built-in experts that

quickly walk you through the steps necessary to

complete common database tasks.

Send data to your word processor easily using the

Mail Merge Wizard.

Use the Table Wizard to make table definition

much easier.

Simplify database queries using the Query Wizard.

Build screens easily using the Screen Wizard.

Create reports automatically with the Report Wiz-

ard.

Choose from more than 85 label formats and

quickly create labels using the Label Wizard.”

• .FoxPro Professional Edition gives you added powei

by offering you FoxPro 2.6, as well as three add-on

kits (no longer available separately):

1. Develop client-server applications with the FoxPrc

Connectivity Kit.

2. Compile and distribute your applications royalty-

free with the FoxPro Distribution Kit.

3. Tap the extensibility of FoxPro with the FoxPro

Library Construction Kit.”

It sounds to me like Microsoft is adding a bit of the

Access front-end. Another feature, the “Auto-migrate

function brings in programs written in other xBase

languages, such as dBase IV. One has to wonder if

this isn’t Microsoft’s response to Borland’s announce-

ment that dBase For Windows won’t be released until

July ‘94.

Kirk Nason indicated to me that this upgrade isn’t

necessarily for everyone.

For a complete copy of the press release, as well as

current pricing and upgrade paths, please see Chuck

Williams or myself at the meeting.

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