The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

October 1999

The LA Fox Developer is the monthly newsletter of

the LA Fox Developers Group. The purpose is

information sharing among application developers

and users working with FoxPro.

LA Fox Address

LA Fox

Barry R. Lee

714/375-3300

P.O. Box 6624

Huntington Beach, CA 92615-6624

LA Fox Board of Directors

Barry R. Lee, President/Newsletter Editor

Bill Anderson, Vice President/Programs

Twila Miller, Treasurer/Membership

Jonathan Melvin

Wayne Stahnke

David Salson

Mike Cummings

Michael Meer

George Porter

LA Fox is the oldest FoxPro developer’s group in

Southern California. The newsletter contains regular

columns as well as articles from other user groups.

XPro User Group

Randy Unruh

310/399-9159

2210 Wilshire Blvd. -#161

Santa Monica, CA 90403

OC FoxPro Developers Group

Mike Vincent

(714)970-9147

Membership/Subscription

The annual membership fee for the LA Fox Develop-

ers Group, including subscription to The LA Fox

Developer Newsletter, is $48.

Disclaimer

Neither the LA Fox User Group, the XPro User

Group, the OC FoxPro Developers Group, their

officers or board of directors or their members make

any express or implied warranties of any kind with

regard to any information disseminated, including,

but not limited to, warranties of merchantability and/

or fitness for a particular purpose.

Opinions provided by newsletter articles, or by

speakers, members, or guests who address the

meetings, are individual opinions only, and do not

necessarily represent the opinions of the group. All

opinions and information should be carefully consid-

ered, and the group is not liable for any incident or

consequential damages in connection with, or arising

out of, the furnishing or use of any information or

opinions. Brand names and product names may be

trademarks or registered trademarks of their respec-

tive owners.

Out and About (Con't from Page 1)

Sheraton, New Orleans, LA. This new event is going to have strong

support from Microsoft and will be on the same scale/level as Advisor's

DevCon. But it is offering several innovative concepts. Content and direc-

tion is going to be determined by an advisory board which will be made up

primarily of speakers. People attending this conference will be allowed to

“cross-pollinate” with the SQL conference, running concurrently at the same

hotel, free of charge. This means that while an attendee may be registered

for the VFP conference, he or she will be able to attend any of the SQL

conference sessions absolutely free. For more info, visit the website at

http://www. vfpdevcon.com.

September 24-28, 2000, Visual FoxPro DevCon, Fountainebleau

Resort Hotel and Towers, Miami, FL. Speakers are yet to be announced

and no other details are forthcoming as of press time. For more info, visit

the website at http://wvw.advisor.com/cmfOOO9p.nsf.

Since We Last Met

Colt, that venerable firearms manufacturer, is pulling out of the consumer

handgun market. Eskimo Pies, that delectable taste treat manufacturer, is

up for sale. What is this world coming to?!?

Micro Endeavors, Inc. (MEl) is considering coming out to Southern

California with their VF605 hands-on class fora week in December. In an

e-mail received from George DeLuca, the “605” class is “...a five day

course and is an accelerated version of VF603: Application Development 1

and VF604: Application Development 2. This fast-paced course takes the

FoxPru application developer from a single table multi-user form to a multi-

page, multi-table form. Given the quick pace, there is less time, fewer

exercises, and less discussion of the materials contained within the

manual. Prerequisites for the class include “A solid understanding of the

Visual FoxPro development environment and basic development syntax or

completion of the VF302, VF502 or VF602 self study. Suggested length of

Visual FoxPro development experience is a minimum of three months.”

Those interested in this class may contact George directly to express their

interest, GeorgeD©microendeavors.com, visit MEl’s website at http:/I

www.microendeavors.com or phone (800) 331-9434 to register.

The Epistle of Brad...

Removing Obstacles

by Brad Drury

When you encounter an obstacle, in programming or elsewhere in life

(what’s a life?), there are two things you can do. You can go around the

obstacle, or you can remove it. I’m here to say that, in programming,

removing obstacles pays back in ways you don’t always anticipate.

My day job, which I’m not about to give up, consists of maintaining about

10,000 lines of code that has a long and honored history of avoiding ob-

stacles. Y2K approaches, and Plan B is in effect: I gotta fix the code. One

process receives data from the outside world in text format. The next

process receives its input from the first, in an old text format. Going around

(Con't, page 5)

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