May2000

The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

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.

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

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.

2210 Wilshire Blvd. - #161

SantaMonica, CA -90403

OC FoxPro Developers Group

Membership/Subscription

The annual membership fee for the LA Fox Developers Group, including subscription to The LA Fox Developer Newsletter, is $48.

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 considered, 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 respective owners.

Out and About (Con’t from Page 1)

may be registered for the VFP conference, he or she will be able to attend any of the SQL conference sessions absolutely free. Featured speakers at the keynote address will include Robert Green, Product Manager from the Developer Division of Microsoft, and Ricardo Wenger, Visual FoxPro Group Manager from Microsoft. For more info, visit the website at http:// vwvw.vfpdevcon.com.

September 24-28, 2000, Advisor 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://www.advisor.com/cmf0009p.nsf. (Any material relating to this con ference...speakers, sessions, etc.... still haven’t been announced orreleased. I wonderhow long we have to wait.]

November 5-8, 2000, Great Lakes Great Database Workshop 2000, Hyatt Regency, Milwaukee, WI. More affectionately known as “Whil Fest”. The fourth semi-annual (bi-annual?) Great Lakes Great Database Workshop features 20 internationally recognized Visual FoxPro and software development experts presenting over 45 different sessions on Visual FoxPro 7.0 and related areas. For more info, visit the website at http://www.hentzenwerke.com/con ference/great_lakes_2000.htm.

Does this sound familiar, anyone? I picked up the latest copy of Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal because I figured the timing was “right’. You may or may not have heard about the recent VBITS conference in San Francisco orb-February 15th, where Microsoft announced that the new version of Visual Basic, VB7, is going to be truly object-oriented. Yes, it now has inheritance! (Among other features...) So it was with interest that I picked this magazine up, just to see what the editors (and the VB community) were saying about the new product. Jeff Hadfield, the publisher, was particularly enamored of all the new Web development features. That was basically all he talked about in his column, while only devoting a very short paragraph to the inheritance issue. On the other hand, Patrick Meader, Editor-in-Chief, devoted his entire column to the new 00 feature sets of VB7, including code-based and visual inheritance; free threading; and structured exception handling, eliminating the need for GO TO error- handling statements. Here are some quotes from his column:

“I suppose... Microsoft knows it faces a tough sell. Many long-time VB developers are going to be stunned by the breadth of VB7’s changes, and it will take them a while to adjust.. ..lnheritance is notoriously easy to abuse and misuse, and part of your responsibility as a programmer is to learn what it takes to implement such techniques properly... .Another significant cost: ease of migration.. .VB7 is a ground-up rewrite... .lt took courage for Microsoft to take this step, but it’s the right one...”

I’ve heard this somewhere before. haven’t you? <s>

Well, that’s it for now. I’m off to the brand new, first ever, New Orleans DevCon. My condolences to those of you who aren’t going. But if you want to get a flavor, tune in to the live WebCast Sunday evening. You can go to http://www.vfpdevcon.com to find out all the details....