This download contains different projects and source files which are designed to show how how some common Visual FoxPro functionally is created in Visual Basic .NET. Many of these samples are directly or indirectly based on existing Visual FoxPro 8.0 Solution Samples for comparison reference. Each project is self-contained and can be run independently of any other.
.NET Samples for Visual FoxPro Developers
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Well, I’ve never used FoxPro. I guess it’s been around for quite a while now and used mostly for database apps.
What’s probably going on is that Microsoft is no longer interested in supporting FoxPro and is trying to wean developers off of it.
“Well, I’ve never used FoxPro. I guess it’s been around for quite a while now and used mostly for database apps.”
Yep. It’s a database programming language, so it is used only for database apps. I used to work with it back in the 80s, which says how long it has been around. It was basically Microsoft’s answer to dBase and Clipper.
“What’s probably going on is that Microsoft is no longer interested in supporting FoxPro and is trying to wean developers off of it.”
That’s pretty much it. Microsoft has been trying to migrate FoxPro users to Access mostly.
I think MS FoxPro is much better then Access and in South America it was(is?) sold with MS Office.
Microsoft purchased FoxPro back in 1992.
http://www.foxprohistory.org/articles_5.htm
They released one Mac version, and let that die.
Access was being developed at the same time, so Microsoft didn’t even seem sure then what they wanted to do. I think the attraction of FoxPro was that it was dBase compatible. That used to mean something.
But since Access came bundled with Office, it quickly killed dBase and everything else.
“I think the attraction of FoxPro was that it was dBase compatible.”
dBase is still the de facto standard file format for desktop databases though, and being dBase compatible is still important for one important reason: Virtually any desktop database, and any spreadsheet for that matter can import dBase data. Of course, that advantage of FoxPro was removed by Access since Access can now import and export a dBase table.
The one potential drawback to dBase format is that it does not allow you to store binary data in a database. Hence, it is not possible to store photographs and such in a dBase database.
Access was being developed at the same time, so Microsoft didn’t even seem sure then what they wanted to do. I think the attraction of FoxPro was that it was dBase compatible. That used to mean something.
They wanted the developers, not the product. These kind of buyouts are all too common, especially in Redmond.
“They wanted the developers, not the product. These kind of buyouts are all too common, especially in Redmond.”
They wanted the product too. After all, remember that this was a time when Borland’s dBase was completely dominating the database field. The Borland / Microsoft rivalry is a very old one, extending all the way back to Turbo C vs. Microsoft C. Microsoft wanted a piece of the database market, and at the time, buying FoxBase seemed like reasonable move. Of course, things did not work out the way Microsoft planned. FoxBase never really displaced dBase as the dominant database programming environment.
Most of this amounts to tribal legends (it’s been a while):
FoxBase was originally a Mac database (Symantec made a big deal about it being developed w/ Think C, many moons ago.) IIRC, it featured a query optimization technology called Rushmore that made it extremely fast.
The story at the time was that MS wanted Rushmore for SQL Server (and later Access) but really didn’t care about FoxBase. It was never modernized and it’s database language is now pretty dated.
I know of one FoxPro shop that’s still in business, making a comprehensive bookkeeping/database for churches. One told me about going to tiny conferences where everyone knew everyone else. They describe it as being drastically easier and faster to work with than than VB+Access but pretty well abandoned by MS.
This sounds like another .NET-or-die thrust by MS, similar to Apple’s behavior with OS X and Cocoa. I looked it over a few times and ran up against the almost total absence of documentation beyond a useless-for-newbies function reference.
Visual FoxPro is currently at version 8.0 and version 9.0 is in development. You can download the public beta of 9.0 for free at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/
Also, check out the letters from Ken Levy for a description of the new features and an idea where the product is headed.
In the end Visual FoxPro is being made far more interoperable with MSSQL Server. It has it’s good points, is batter than Access, but SQL is in every database developers future.
Guys, It is almost painful to read what is being said about foxpro. “A bit dated ?” How old is Basic? 1968 was when it first was introduced. Check it. C++ ? 1986. It is not as if the language was abandoned. FoxPro was Truly Object Oriented almost ten years ago. VB only became an object oriented language with the release of .Net, till then it was ‘object based’. Huge Difference. Comparing Fox to Access? You cannot do it. Access is a toy. It is terribly slow, unextensible and meant for the < 5 users simultaneuos. Fox Pro is the Fastest Production Database on the Planet. It is much faster than SQL in Medium sized apps. ( < a million records returned in a query) It is a superior Language to VB and VB.Net for Database development. The euro tunnel is managed by a fox App (over 120 terrabytes of data), the Defense department Logistics system (JFAST) is written in fox. Do you know why you never here anything about fox?
In alot of areas it competes against SQL, but fox databases do not require user licensing, so no royalty for MS. VFP 9.0 will be supported till 2015 by MS. In small to medium databases (under 2 million records per table, @ 100 simultaneous users) it will out perform SQL Server. It also provides a great way to access other dta formats such as SQL, Oracle, MySql, Access, dBase, Cache, PostOgrSql, or about any oter DBMS on the planet. The only real draw back to fox is that it lack the security of the Oracles and SQL servers.
If you write database applications and you haven’t seen FoxPro, you might be making life alot harder on yourself and not using the best tool for the job.