Migration from VFP to MariaDB

[rlawrence]

I've been a dedicated VFP developer for 23 years. It's clear to me, however, that with the introduction of 64-bit machines and Windows, a new platform is needed for the work I do. I know there has been a lot of discussion over the last several years about the plight of VFP. I'm not interested in adding to that.

What I wanted to ask this community, however, was what our migration plans might be and the thinking behind those plans. I have been looking closely at the whole "free software" movement. What did not seem like a viable option 10 years ago, seems quite viable today. I'm making my first forays into using MariaDB. I wondered if there were other Foxpro developers who have already or were interested in doing the same. A quick search of this forum only brought up one thread with any mention of MySQL or MariaDB (by Olaf).

I haven't looked yet. There may be another forum for these products--even here on tek-tips.com. But I was specifically interested in VFP developers who have made the jump. I thought I was pretty well versed in database technology and concepts, but I am still finding the transition to be challenging. Discussing the transition with other Foxpro developers would be a comfort.

Any thoughts?

Ron

 

[Mike Lewis]

Ron,

Just to clarify one point:

Do you realise that MariaDB is a back-end database? It's not a development environment or programming language, like VFP, so you can't migrate your applications to it. What you can do is to use MariaDB as a back end for an application written is some other language or development environment. If your aim is to get away from VFP, you will still need to choose that other environment.

I'm sorry if this is stating the obvious. You've obviously researched MariaDB, so you presumably already know this. But I wanted to clarify exactly what you are asking. Are you intending to stay with VFP for the front-end programming? Or do you have some other solution in mind?

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Hi Ron,

look at Hentzenwerke, they have a book on VFP with MySQL and that's still valid for MariaDB, as MariaB only is a spin off from the original MySQL developers, you should know it and most probably have choosen it for that reason.

I am still at the point doing VFP frontends with MS SQL Server backend, not yet fully moved applications to .NET. I'm leaning towards .NET for some time now professionally, made a first job (I already mentioned elsewhere), but still do VFP both professionally and personally and a little PHP and the web stack (including MySQL) on top of that.

The company I work for closes end of the year, it's not yet finally decided where I go next. Most probably I will be moving to another company, who also formerly did VFP and now .NET, who know me as VFP MVP and community member. Then I'll move to an office here in Hamburg for them with a collegue. That'll mean continuinig with current Hamburg customers and moving towards .NET.

If you have a software prodcut and mainly do customizations and license selling, then the language choice is secondary, your development just should not hit limitations of OS and more important in any needed interoperability. 'Also device types like tablets and smartphones get more important even for the classical desktop work.

You can also make your living on the basis of free software, I know several freelancers I regularly meet, for example living from Joomla shops and plugins, site managment etc., project work, least of it long run relationships. I would miss that, as team integration, knowing customer needs and loyalty from both sides only happens in the long run. But business is moving faster, that's not a new trend anyway.

I shouldn't have a problem here in germany, the job market is good for IT professionals. There are just so many self acclaimed experts and professions you have to compete with, it seems to me the education system has not kept pace with industrial needs and freelancing has taken over the place of permanent employment, because no profession really covers all needs of projects and IT development of companies. So a company nowadays needs several specialists, that do what could be done by someone called a "software developer" in the past.

So my final thought is, on top of choosing your weapons or tools, you also need to do social networking with both collegues and customers.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[rlawrence]

Hi Mike and Olaf!

Thanks for responding. I knew I would hear from you first.

Yes, I do know that MariaDB is the split off from MySQL. I figure I'll be in good company, since both Google and Wikipedia have made the same choice.

Yes, I also understand that MariaDB/MySQL is the database and not an integrated development environment. I'll miss the integrated nature of VFP, but I'm looking at other IDE's for development. And the point of integration is SQL! Once your are at a SQL command, there's not a lot that the IDE can offer anyway.

In my particular industry (book publishing), it has long been known that about half the market are Mac users. Meeting their needs with our products has been a challenge. With the advent of mobile devices, it seems that an HTML interface would meet most of my market's needs. So, I'm looking at things like the NetBean Java and Eclipse IDE's. None of this is set in stone. I've begun my adventure by simply trying to create compatible tables in MariaDB and am working on converting my VFP data. That's where I am now.

It looks like there are SO MANY new features, tools, and ways to do things. It's a bit overhwelming getting started. That's why I thought it might be good to ask the question of this community. I'll check out Hentzenwerke. (Thanks Olaf.)

Any other strategic thoughts for getting started?

 

[Olaf Doschke]

If you aim towards web development you have to learn Javascript and jQuery or any Javascript Frontend Framework, and they all base on jQuery. HTML and CSS may suffice for simple sites, but this will not help you for interactive apps.

And whatever database you choose for data storage, that and SQL will not suffice on the backend side. In VFP the result of SQL is cursors, there is no such universal thing you could transport from server to client. The classic solution is to generate HTML at the server side, send that to browsers, which needed few or even no Javascript at the client side. But that's not what todays client frontends would do, they need data in JSON or XML notation and will feed it to the client side frontend.

And that's not covering native apps, for which you would have no choice but to learn Objective C for Apple, Java for Android and C++/C# for Windows Store apps. The technology stack of HTML/CSS + JS only leads you almost to device independant apps. Apache Cordova is one of the solutions promising one codebase in HTML,CSS and Javascript for all devices, but such apps aree as native as a VFP form with a Webbrowser Control on it and every UI based on HTML, CSS and Javascript inside that. You'd not make use of VFP controls this way and not have a VFP Form Desktop application but a web application squeezed into a Winform. It's somewhat working, but when there is the lates iOS version published your Cordova app will not inherit that new OS look as a native app does.

What's fine with HTML,CSS and Javascript is Webapps, which like any website don't care for a native OS look, but rather for corporate UI look. If you need apps on top of that depends. Many magazines don't just put their ePub or kindle formats into Play store or Amazon, but do a magazine app. I don't know what your goals are in the device aspect.

Bye, Olaf.