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SW Fox: Why NOT Show your own apps?

One of the sessions that I didn't get to attend last night was the "Show us your apps". I think that session would have been really interesting.

Many of the attendees I spoke to were fairly shy about their own FoxPro applications. They would talk about it (as it is their "baby" so to speak) but when asked about specific features that they should show, they seemed to shy away.

That's unfortunate - because I don't think I've ever seen a single FoxPro app (with the possible exception of some purely framework-based apps) that hasn't included a unique feature or hook.

That's one of the reasons I'm particularly excited about Cathy Pountney's session about customization vertical market apps.  Only problem is that it's on right when I've got to get ready to leave. I think I'll have to corner her separately for a quick interview.

But back to my point, one my client apps is an application that was ported from DOS and brought kicking and screaming up to Windows and now finally over to SQL. It has TONS of Bad features (filtered grids, etc). BUT...it also includes some great features: built-in alerts, custom business rule validation.

So when asked to show my apps, I wouldn't show the bad stuff (well, I might to show that it exists everywhere) but the really cool stuff.

Everyone's got some kind of cool in their applications somewhere...why not show it?
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Cathy Pountney said…
It's interesting that you mention my session in reference to showing an app. The concept for my "customizing a vertical market application" session came about after seeing two other people show their apps at user groups. I took ideas from both of those apps, combined with some new ones of my own, and came up with the conept I showed at SWFox. Seeing what other people do in their apps can trigger great ideas for you to implement in your app, even if you do it differently.
October 21, 2008 at 3:10 PM
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