I'm a little lost ... VFP or not VFP .... ???

[2006user_DZ]

Original text written in French and translated into English on google translate.
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Hello everyone,

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Can we still count on VFP as the main working tool ???
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I am a 53 year old man, who wasted a lot of time in procrastination (over 20 years) because of never being able to set specific goals in my life, and I take full responsibility for this "failure. "(because before I played the victim and that I put my failures on the backs of others and of circumstances external to me ...).

The time of the corona virus allowed me to read (for the 1st time in my life) books on personal development and psychology, which allowed me to wake up a bit from my long sleep and to shake myself for move. This post is one of the steps I took to change my bad habits (I've been thinking about doing it for over a year, without ever taking action !!! Procrastination, Procrastination
and Procrastination !!!).

I now know that I am no longer allowed to make mistakes and procrastinate, so I try to find a way out of it and by logic I have to do something that is closest to what I already knew how to do before (before falling into the fatal error of depression and procrastination).

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The Knowledge that i had before:

- I had a computer shop (1994-2004) so ​​I was still in the IT field.
- My beginnings in programming (self-taught) were with dbaseIII +, then with Clipper S'87 and finally with Clipper 5.xx under DOS, and I was able to develop several commercial applications in this period under Clipper 5.xx (applications management standards such as: payroll, personnel, invoicing etc ...).
- I thought I would follow my path by migrating to Visual Foxpro, but I never did, the sale of computer products took over and I gave up programming (we are in the year 2000).
- Since 2004 to date I have done almost nothing except (3 discontinuous years in the public service as an office agent, nothing to do with IT).
- (2009-2011) I trained as an application engineer in Computer Science option Information System (RDBMS, Oracle SQL and MS, Windows server 2003, MERISE and UML, ...) and I did not nothing done with this training, I was already old, companies are looking for young people, and they are right.
- (2011-2013) I did another training "Cisco CCNA 4" and same fate.
- Since that date (2004) also I have never stopped following the development of IT on the net but just like HOBIES and as general culture, I have never put my hand in the paw, always procrastination, procrastination. .
- I also often consult the world of Visual Foxpro (out of nostalgia, just by reading the headlines ...) on your Forum Tek-Tips and on other platforms such as youtube and I see that VFP is still alive, it depends on where we are on the globe, some regions of the world still use it and adopt it as a working tool, other regions on the other hand has completely abandoned it.

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Let's come back to the main topic:

So I have to follow a path and put all my time and energy into it to develop a skill that will allow me to find my place in this world and get out of this comfort zone that has destroyed me and my family.

The problem is "the time", I have no time to try and try. The personal development books that I have read all recommend taking advice from the meadows of expert people who have been successful in this field. AND THIS IS THE MAIN SUBJECT OF MY APPLICATION, I ASK FOR ADVICE, ADVICE AND ADVICE.

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I have three ideas in my head:

1 - Invest my time and energy to learn VFP from zero to expert so that it becomes my main working skill. I have the basics in this area and there is no lack of educational resources on the net.

2 - Forget the world of VFP altogether and go directly to new technologies such as: android programming, Python, Java, Flutter ... etc, or web technology such as: html, css, Php, mysql, js,... etc . In this case I have no basics in this area, but educational resources on the net are not lacking too.

3 - Forget the world of computers and IT altogether because it is a field that requires young people (having physical and moral endurance) because we are already too old for that, and therefore go look for their vocation elsewhere.

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Ouuuf Woaouw !!! What a long speech ..., but I'm sure other people will benefit from the answers and advice you can give on this subject too.

I thank you in advance, and express my gratitude to you for the help you bring to this Forum.

It's up to you, ladies and gentlemen, the experts ...

PS: I'm from Algeria (North Africa)
I love you all.

 

[Steve Meyerson]

DZ,

Do you prefer APPLES or ORANGES?

Explanation: No one else but you can answer this question for you.

Good luck.

Steve (Older guy)

 

[Koen Piller]

Hi,
post your question on aToutFox.org
Koen

 

[2006user_DZ]

Steve Meyerson

very well received,

thanks steve
Good luck for you too.

 

[2006user_DZ]

Thanks Koen,
I have already been registered on atoutfox.org since 2006 and I therefore know you through your participation on the atoutfox forum.
Why did I publish this post on tek-tips?
because I saw that this forum is very active and reactive and that there are very different profiles here which gives a much more real picture of the state of health of visual foxpro.
Merci Koen...

 

[GriffMG]

I would say that while your skill set are readily transferable to VFP (you followed much the same path as I did) that timing is everything, and frankly this boat has sailed.

If you are starting from where you are - given the connected world we live in - I would look to another technology to pick up and run with. Look at developing web based applications that you can supply as a service, rather than PC based products.

Good luck indeed.

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are !good for you. ​

 

[2006user_DZ]

GriffMG
it's good to receive your opinion and still good to find people who have more or less similar backgrounds

Thanks Griff
Good luck to you too.

 

[Steve Meyerson]

Hi DZ,

After reading Griff's response, I realized I was too flip with my answer. His advice is very thoughtful & makes a lot of sense in my opinion. I would follow it if I were (as young as) you.

Again, Good Luck!

Steve

 

[2006user_DZ]

Steve
yes, Griff's advice is much more realistic.
While waiting for further opinions and advice...
to be continued ...
Thanks

 

[Mike Lewis]

still good to find people who have more or less similar backgrounds

You'll find that a few of us here have a more-or-less similar background (although not all of us are as young as you).

Mike


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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[2006user_DZ]

Respects Mr Mike Lewis.

It's a pleasure for me to reach out and chat with prestigious names in the VFP world such as: Mike Lewis, Mike Gagnon, TamarGranor, Doug Hennig ... etc.
without forgetting: GriffMG, Olaf Doschke, etc ...

This already gives me hope, motivation ... and alleviates my worries a little.

Hey Mike I'm almost 54, do you think I'm a little young?
I did not quite understand.

Thanks Mike

 

[Mike Lewis]

I'm almost 54, do you think I'm a little young?

Everything is relative.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[2006user_DZ]

Thanks Mike

Surely Mike, it depends on our state of mind
but we must not lie to ourselves,
there are realities that must be accepted and taken into consideration, for example: age, the situation of the country, new world trends, etc.

Best regards.

 

[wibenji]

I think Griffs advice is the best you can get.

Benni
"it works for me ¯\_(?)_/¯

 

[ggreen61]

The recommendation to consider other technologies makes a lot of sense. I have developed several new applications in the last number of years in VFP. The question is what is the application that you want to develop? How do you deploy it? What is the interface expectation from your user perspective? What is the backend database?

In my case I developed a VFP application for managing charity financial data. These are small shops that do not have a lot of money to have a database server but do have a common shared directory. So a VFP application that uses DBC/DBF for these users made sense since they are small in size (fewer than 10 users) and did not want the overhead of a full database server. I wrote it so that it could be easily upsized to a full database server backend. Also, they did not need web access (so no web-UI). This allowed the application to be developed in VFP which has very fast design tools. I also started with FoxPro back at release 2.0 DOS and kept up with it as it moved the VFP 9.0 (last release). There is now a developer in China that has corrected many of the bugs in VFP and has created a 64-bit version (I still use the 32-bit version) and it is known as "VFP 10.0") and has created a compiler for VFP that will create a true binary executable (VFP runs as p-code).

So I had an UI requirement that can be satisfied by VFP, the database access satisfied by VFP, and it is easily deployed and remotely updated by me. VFP was a match.

If you are learning, you will probably find more information for other solutions. Google is a friend here to get example code. VFP gives a very good rapid development platform that I am quite familar with. I am sure there are other tools out there for other solutions as well. For instance, there is Window Builder (from Google -- was bought and made available freely) for Java screen layout. It is very good.

So I would start with the questions at the top and see what tool for you makes the most sense to use.

 

[2006user_DZ]

Hi wibenji
certainly, Griff's advice is well thought out, and more realistic.
Thanks wibenji

 

[2006user_DZ]

Hi ggreen61
Very good experience,
you have perfectly described what I am thinking of as I want to choose VFP as a working tool.
it is a question of being able to develop apps for small businesses, small liberal professions, and specific management solutions according to demand.
therefore the targeted customers are small entities that never reach 10 users and which most often have no need for the internet or large equipment for the management of their activities. just a few PCs in local networks.
I'm also sure that I don't want to touch big clients.

it's enough for me to have customers that are in close proximity.

Thank you very much ggreen61

 

[tomk3]

Hello,

If you want to earn money with what you are doing I would first try to find out what is really NEEDED or at least WANTED in your country (or city or world)
and what YOU CAN do to offer it (time to develop, costs of tools , hardware needed,...). Check which other solutions exist and if you can do better and/or cheaper. Learn if necessary basics of economy : offer / order / incoice / Payment / post sales support. Then you have a goal. Then choose the tools to do it.
I would recommend to concentrate on individual solutions (one person / company), software for complete branches is hard to sell, hard to maintain and usually exists.

For example
If you have small shops which need software "without too much internet", then VFP is still a good tool (Rapid development of Gui, database integrated or easy access to SQL, nice addons like foxypreviewer)

If you want to built software for companys with own IT (I guess not) whichs asks which tools you will use : use their tools (will not be VFP, maybe c# , SQL Server and a framework)

If you want to offer a webbased service or a webbased app or something for android, maybe windev / flutter / java / python is the tool to choose.

Say no
If someone asks for software to be connected to a special expensive device but you have to buy one for development.
If they want 24/7 support and you are the only developer.


Another advice
If you do not use VFP I strongly recommend to choose an additional framework / tools lib.
I would never spend the time to reinvent the wheel. For example : Telerik for dev. in C# is framework giving many ready and tested components.
Another example is windev / webdev where framework and components are integrated.

If you have choosen a tool try to built (if you have the time) a solution for yourself (adress manager with reports, invoicing tool, stamp collector, ...)


Summary
Find out what people will pay for and what you can do, choose the tools, built it and sell it.
And get the money to buy the tools, most of them are not free.

Good luck
Tom

I did a special librarian software new in 2019 with VFP : 2 users, MS SQL Express, done in 2 days (because of many tools I still have in VFP)
My colleagues calculated about 5 days with c# and framework (offering more, but here not needed flexibility)