RSS 2.0 and Visual FoxPro

Saw this on the Wiki from Alex Feldstein -
Craig Boyd posted a VFP routine for converting an RSS feed into a DBF file.

Why might you want to do this?

Maybe you want to build your own news aggregator or offer automatic updates into your application. If you publish your "updates" as an RSS feed, then you can manage it a little easier with a table.

Or maybe you can start posting updates directly on your web site that do all kinds of updates. One of our Horizon applications, for example, allows users to put dynamic code for business rule validation. I've been asking the development team to find a way to have updates to the built-in business rules automatically download from a web site. Using RSS would be the ideal way to accomplish this.

Now some of you might say, why not simply do it as a separate XML web server - the value of the RSS approach is that the content can be updated using a simple BLOG post (something every support person or end user can figure out) and then my reader can then put it into the proper place. Kind of like structured blogging.

The SPS Weblog - RSS 2.0 and VFP

Comments

Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

MS has just introduced their portal and it's pretty comprehensive. Nothing quite like learning that some people use AIM instead of MSN messenger, or that there really may be a need for supporting 4 monitors ( Cyrus Complains ) However, it's really a great sign that MS is serious about supporting the blogging community which seems to have um, exploded in size in the past year. Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

Programmers vs. Developers vs. Architects

I received an email this morning from Brandon Savage 's newsletter. Brandon's a PHP guru (works at Mozilla) but his newsletter and books have some great overall perspectives for developers of all languages. However, this last one (What's the difference between developers and architects?) kind of rubs me the wrong way. Either that, or I've just missed the natural inflation of job descriptions. (maybe, it's like the change in terminology between Garbage man and Waste Engineer or Secretary and Office Administrator) So maybe it's just me - but I think there's still a big difference between Programmer, Developer and then of course, architect. The key thing here is that every role has a different perspective and every one of those perspectives has value. The original MSF create roles like Product Manager, Program Manager, Developer, Tester, etc - so every concept may pigeon hole people into different roles. But the statements Brandon makes are often distinction

FoxInCloud Stats

FoxInCloud sent this link a while back about their statistics regarding visits to their site: http://foxincloud.com/blog/2017/12/27/VFP-community-lessons-from-foxincloud-site.html What's interesting here is the breakdown of people. Yes, I think it's understandable that the Fox community is getting older. Another factor is the growth of the mobile and web environments taking over development. These environments really do push people towards the newer non-SQL or free SQL/hosted environments but more towards hosted storage options like Amazon and Google. A tool like FoxInCloud that helps MOVE existing applications to the cloud inherently competes with those environments. But FoxInCloud also allows developers to extend their application further by giving them a starting point using Javascript and the basic CSS (such as Bootstrap). If you're not rebuilding your application from scratch, it's certainly a great step forward. FoxPro VFP

Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions

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