The LA Fox Developer

The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

President’s Column (Con't from page 2)

You should be aware however, that even a week- long session is not going to teach you everything you need to be effective. It will introduce you to concepts, get you over the threshold of absorbing the massive amount of new information, and teach you the mechanics of using the new tools much faster than you can do it yourself. But even after a long beta test period, these companies haven’t yet had enough time and experience to establish mature, proven development techniques that take full advantage of the new tools. As time passes, they will offer advanced seminars covering more design and development techniques, but this soon after release you are going to get a heavy dose of concepts and mechanics rather than techniques. You will need more time on your own to master the tools - experimenting to establish your own techniques and adapting the tools to the kind of applications you build and the style of development you practice. In summary, my opinion is that this kind of training is far superior to the “developer conference" approach or the one day "introduction" seminars. It is the best alternative available and is indispensable for a practicing FoxPro developer \emdash you can’t afford not to do this if yOu make your living developing applications.

And the VFP books are starting to hit the shelves. Dick Bard has published already, and others are dose behind - Alan Gnver and George Goley for sure. I wish Alan Schwartz would write one - he has a unique gift for dear communication. We will be discussing those books at later user meetings, and written reviews by members will be warmly received by Barry and published in the newsletter.

An exciting idea circulating in the FoxPro community right now is the’ expected compatibility among three of the leading third party products in their forthcoming Visual FoxPro versions. The idea is dearly expressed in recent brochures from Neon Software regarding plans for their Visual FoxExpress. FoxExpress is a well respected rapid application development tool in the 2.6 arena, and it will now be upgraded to produce object oriented applications which are based on a foundation of methodologies and dass hierarchies from the Flash Creative Management/Alan Gnver Codebook, and will include a run time version of the Micromega FoxFire report writer. It will also add capability for team

FoxPro Advisor magazine has once again organized an intensive four day FoxPro Developers Conference. This years meeting will be held in Phoenix Arizona from October 22 through 25. This conference will focus exclusively on FoxPro, with technical sessions covering the full spectrum of Visual FoxPro and FoxPro 2.6 topics. The sessions are grouped from introductory through intermediate and advanced, so you can be sure of getting information at the level you need and avoid wasting time with material that is either over your head or already mastered. The conference is jointly sponsored by Microsoft and many of the speakers are directly from the development team in Redmond, including Richard McAniff, the General Manager of that group. Other speakers include well known consultants and trainers such as Geor Goley, Steven Black, and Drew Speedie. Th re are also four Sunday pre-conference sessions on related topics such as Windows 95 and OLE Controls. The price is $795 - relatively low for this type of comprehensive con fer ence. You can register at 800- 3683204.

The Microsoft Roadmap to Developer Products and Services contains more than 100 files of information to help you learn about and evaluate Microsoft products and services. It provides datasheets, strategy papers, technology specifications, and product demos, which you can find using the Browser or full text search.

What Do You Need to Run It?

Personal computer using a 386SX-25MHz processor or higher (33MHz recommended)

MS-DOS®operating system version 5.0 or later

Microsoft® Windows® operating system version

Come to the next meeting. We’ll have the order forms.