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Showing posts from July, 2007

Help! My code is suboptimal!

You've got to hand it to SourceGear - not only do they make great products but they make it fun to get swag! I always wonder if any of the " offers /pleas" companies come out with will even apply to outside the US - I'm happy to see that this one does. As you can see, ( Eric Sink ) the Evil Mastermind has me completely at his mercy - he's even got me living in a grey world with fireballs in my hands. And the full comic is really great as well - where's issue #2? Also, where can I get code-monkeys from? If you don't know who SourceGear is, they became hugely popular with the SourceOffSite tool, which made VisualSourceSafe useable over the Internet and have since branched out with Vault (a SQL server based VSS system) and Fortress, a SCM tool (x-ray vision goggles not included - or are they?). They also make the great (and free) Diffmerge tool

Vienna will support 32-bit: Even longer life for FoxPro applications

I'll admit it - when Craig has talked about the move to 64-bit in the past, I've agreed with him on it. Microsoft has said numerous times now that they are moving into exclusive 64-bit territory. With all the calls from FoxPro developers wanting VFP to go 64-bit, the amount of work required to do this was always cited as being a reason for not doing any upgrades along this path. Yes, VFP would always run in 32-bit compatibility mode on a 64-bit processor but otherwise, it's not going to take advantage of the next generation of processors. This suggested to me that realistically, 32-bit apps have a future life-span of 10, maybe 15, years. But this article from ZDNet, Next version of Windows: Call it 7 has a VERY interesting line: " Like Vista, Windows 7 will ship in consumer and business versions, and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions." While FoxPro is supported from Microsoft until 2015 but with basic support ending in or around 2010, this means that the next versi

Fox Does Mac!

Check out Emerson Reed's new control - I had missed it back at the end of June but this is really cool. Works similar to the ZoomBar on a Mac. I love it. What's nice as well is that it's really simple to add into a form and it's all done in FoxPro. Definitely worth checking out. Emerson Santon Reed : Here comes a new control... ZoomNavBar! Powered by ScribeFire .

What I'm Using

I had installed Wakoopa a few months ago just to see what this tool could do. I installed it on both my laptop and desktop machines (which I typically use concurrently - multi-tasking at its finest - or worst) but didn't really see it doing much. Doh! That's what it was supposed to do - not much - just keep an eye on what I've been working with. Since a lot of my day is spent connecting to customers, it was no surprise that #3 on my Top 10 software was Remote Desktop Connection (also because I use it to connect to my own server as well) - what I did find interesting was the other software I used. What's also cool is that they keep track of the software and the versions being used - so I can easily tell if I'm out of date. Sadly, Firefox is number one - but that's because I use it now instead of Outlook completely. Outlook is still what I use to sync my ipaq but for day to day, I almost live in gmail, newsgator and basecamp. Hmm...I wish Wakoopa could keep track

Embedding images in your emails

I recently had an email request to do just this and now Cesar shows us how using Visual FoxPro. Granted, it's with CDO but hey, if it works and the user's machine is set up with SMTP email - but now you know how to do it. Great stuff, Cesar.... Cesar Chalom : Embed images to your emails with CDOSYS Powered by ScribeFire .

Good and bad habits

Craig Bailey pointed over to this older post by Paul Stovell - Craig's comments on the matter (speaking as a software manager) are just as insightful as Paul's and it reminds me of a recent discussion I was having with a colleague on our FoxPro projects. Paul's triangle diagram is wonderful - you have Resume quality code, production quality code and then prototype quality. We typically set up a variety of milestones to go through projects, regardless of how small the project may be - and yet invariably, something can jump up - not unlike what's described in BugBash today - and thus throws the entire milestone process into a state of flux. "You have to get this done" or "help this person out" and at the end of the day, time isn't being taken to go through the various steps of the milestones. We spec'd out a piece of work for an outsourcing resource recently and after reviewing the phase 1 and phase 2 milestones, the comment was "well, w

Languages that never took off

Markus points us over to this great take from SoftwareDeveloper.com - what I find funny is that I remember when TWO of these products (Delphi and PowerBuilder) were touted as FoxPro killers. Ghosts in the Machine: 12 Coding Languages That Never Took Off - Software Developer I don't know if I would agree with the entire list - but it was interesting to learn the final fate of VRML (which I had hoped would take off) but has now been supplanted with so many other technologies. Powered by ScribeFire .

Another great new site for learning FoxPro (for free!)

After my last post about the VFP Bootcamp, here's another site to teach FoxPro from Garfield Hudson. With free videos as well as upcoming premium content, it looks like a great source. Learn Visual FoxPro - Free!! This is great to see! His free videos include understanding FoxPro data types, modifying data structures and some really great intros to the VFP environment. Check it out! Powered by ScribeFire .

Have some people who need to learn FoxPro? Send them to Bootcamp!

Rick commented on the same notice I was about to - Visionpace Bootcamp in August It's great to see companies like Visionpace and Take Note continuing to offer VFP training like this. I've noticed a handful of messages recently on Foxite looking for "how do I do..." Sometimes I refer to them to the online resources but some people do learn better in a classroom environment. These are definitely the places to get it from! Powered by ScribeFire .