The L.A Fox Developer Newsletter

November 1997

Transaction Server (Con’t from page 7)

http://204.203. 124. 10/pdc/html/davidv.htm

MTS— Why Care?

MS Transaction Server Internet News groups:

News Server: msnews.rnicrosoft. corn

Newsgroup:

news:microsoft.public.microsofttransactionserver.programming

Newsgroup:

news:microsoft.public.rnicrosofttransactionserver.announcements

Newsgroup:

news:microsoft.public.microsofttransactionseiver.integration

Newsgroup:

news:microsoft.public.microsofttransactionserver. administration-

security 3

Tip of the Week...

VFP - CONVERSION TIPS

CharlieGC@aol.com

Subject:

Re: FPW26A to VFP

Q. Being new to VFP, what should I look out for when convert-

ing FPW 2.6 apps to VFP.:

A.

- copy all v2.6 app files (screens, menus, reports, etc) into new

directory

- when opening old files, use ‘visual convert’ and put code into a

text file

- if you used cleanup code to store procedures, look at moving

those procedures to ‘new methods’ of the form

- Study VFP’s OOP syntax (e.g. ‘thisform._object_.property_’,

etc)

- Study difference between FormSet and Form (generally its

easier to reference objects in the same formset:

ThisFormSet. xxx

- Learn about assigning Forms to variables (e.g. DO FORM xyz

NAME oFORMVAR LINKED). This enables objects of the form

to be accessed by oFORMVAR. .methodO, and so on.

- save forms, menus, etc often.

- If you used the TIMEOUT clause of READS, you may be

forced to use FormSets to still have a TIMEOUT property

(unless you want to write your own timeout handler - which is

quite possible in VFP)

- Look at database containers (DBC5). If you have related

tables, a lot of work on ‘integrity’ code could be saved (i.e. use

VFP’s Referential Integrity RI). But N.B. setting up RI does NOT

(Con’t, page 9)

Life System Guide

Last year, I upgraded my Girlfriend 5.0 to Girlfriend 5.1, which

installs itself as “Fiancée”. Recently, I upgraded Fiancée 1.0 to

Wife 1.0 and it’s a real memory hog. It has taken up all my

space, requires more time, and Wife 1.0 must be running before

I can do ANYTHING.

It is also spawning Child Processes, which are further con-

suming system resources. Some applications such as Poker-

Night 10.3, Beerbash 2.5, Bowlfest 1.5, and PubNight 7.0 are

no longer able to run in the system at all.

Additional plug-ins were automatically installed, such as

Mother-In-Law 55.8 ,and there is no uninstall feature for these

plug-ins! No mention of these behaviors was discussed in the

brochure or documentation, although other users have reported

similar problems via e-mail. Because of this, some users that I

know have decided to avoid the headaches associated with

these upgrades and simply move from Girlfriend 5.0 to Girlfriend

6.0. Unfortunately this is not without peril as well as all traces

of Girlfriend 5.0 must be removed from the system (including

hidden files) before attempting installation of 6.0. Even then,

Girlfriend 6.0 will repeatedly run system checks (usually in the

background and often late at night when the system is asleep)

to find evidence of previous versions. To cap it off, Girlfriend 6.0

apparently has a nag feature reminding from time to time about

the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0.

However, I do like some of the features that you are planning to

include in the upcoming Girlfriend 6.1 release:

* A “Don’t remind me again” button

* Minimize button

* Shutdown feature

* An install shield feature so that Girlfriend can be

completely uninstalled if necessary (so you don’t lose

cache and other objects)

Unfortunately, since I’ve already upgraded to Wife 1.0, I don’t

think I will be able to take advantage of any of these new

features unless you decide to include them in the next Mistress

release. But, of course, there is a whole raft of problems

associated with the use of Mistress 1.0 and Wife 1.0 on the

same system, most notably are system conflicts, blue out of

memory screens and continual disk thrashing, which starts

shortly after Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 1.0. Interestingly

enough, all versions of Personal Lawyer still work fine.

Finally, Wife 1.0 apparently deletes all MS Money files before

installing itself; following that, Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install,

claiming insufficient resources.

I personally find all these new tools and conflicts too confusing

and a waste of time. I’m sticking with Dog 1 .0b3. It slobbers,

chews up the paper and blurts out a “Woof sound from time to

time. All in all these bugs are tolerable. It is simple to operate

cheap to feed and we get along fine.

Name withheld by request..

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