Advice on my approach to Clipper to Active Directory Connector

[sfortner]

Disclaimer: I am fairly new to clipper programming!

Summary: I have been tasked with porting a ten year old Clipper app from Novell to Windows Platform. The app makes a lot of use of the Novell bindery (Give me the members of this group; Give me the groups this member belongs to; etc). I am recreating the Novell groups and memberships in our Windows 2000 Active Directory environment and am working on a way to connect to AD.

Current Solution: I have created several VBScripts that make use of ADSI to connect to AD, take a GroupName as a parameter, and write the members to a text file. Within the Clipper app, I am using the "RUN" command to shell out and run the VBScript, then check the text file for the data. So far, it seems to work in the lab.

Help: What do you experienced programmers think of this approach? What kind of pitfalls can I expect with this solution?

Thanks.

 

[TonHu]

Can't you port to XBase++ or even Harbour if you have to stay with our Clipper code? XBase++ will give you direct access to Windows function calls, and the objects/results it retrieves from there, relieving you from a) 'slow' 16 bit DOS performance (Clipper), b) slow external starting of the scripts (run loads a COMSPEC shell, then starts the app), c) 'slow' performance for the script interpreter (VBS). (a lot of questions in just 1 sentence ;-) ) Read all about XBase++ at

http://www.alaska-software.com

Harbour is even more low level (but also low-price ;-) )an 'upgrade' to Clipper, read about it at

http://www.harbour-project.org

Overhauling from Novell to W2K server gives the ideal opportunity to 'dump the old succer' and go for something new (New And Improved!, now with Windows! for even better results!) (grin)
What you are doing now is like taking the old T-Ford (well, Mustang sounds more realistic, knowing Clipper fairly well) to the garage and see if the Ferrari V12 engine (Windows) could fit in there. It will fit after bending some iron and refitting the wheels, but the rest of the vehicle really can't cope with the upgrade, I'm afraid s-)

As you are also new to Clipper, don't hesitate to choose another language you have more/better experiences in, to build this New And Improved! version. It will require a total rewrite after all, and Clipper hasn't been updated 'the last few months' (years that is...) and isn't likely to get any further updates from CA in the near future.

Add-on: Knowing that Novell wasn't going to be the only major player in the field, I decided ten years ago that, whatever I'd choose, I'd not be stuck with a 'single vendor' solution (altough choosing Clipper was...), as my (Clipper-)customers had other types of networks, that didn't support the groups/users (bindery) structure of Novell (Novell Lite, Lantastic), so I had to 'invent' my own users/groups/autorisation system. This is still in use now, but, ofcourse, not 'compatible' with the W2K environment

Well, lets take the new Ferari, and try some new routes.....
HTH,
TonHu