To Fox or not to fox

[TomSlayton]

Hi,

I know that this question comes up every once in a while. I have an opportunity to start a new application and was considering VFP or VB.NET as a front end to a MySQL server. I love to program in Fox and think VB.NET is okay, too.

This is essentially a forms over data application that will need to be around for a while 5+ years. There will be lots of reports and forms. 50+ users.

What do you think? And what do you think about the VFP report writer in comparison to using RDLC reports in .NET?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[clipper01]

I'm sure you will get a debate on vfp v dotNet , but skipping to last question . IF you DO go dotNet , then RDLC will not give you near the same level of control as u get with vfp . In efect it is a tabular layout and although you can DO a lot with it ,u lack the fine control of a 'band' based layout like vfp or crystal. But , again IF u go dotNet, prob yr best bet is to use Dexexpress Reports , band-based design , crystal is a dog to work with for deployment.

 

[craigber]

I would think very carefully about going with DevExpress. I'm supporting apps where their components were used and I have to say, what a huge pain in the a$$.

There are other options. You can go with SQL Server (Express is free) and use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). You could look at Active Reports from GrapeCity/ComponentOne (I have not experience with it, but I'm throwing out another option).

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[clipper01]

Craig , yes , I've looked at the full suite of DevExpress components and can't see advantage in using them. But the problem is to get a good report tool ,soemthing that comes close to VFP or Crystal . You say " use Sql Reporting Services " , but that is RDLC i.e client-based RDL's and I've used it ,but it is limited as tabular-style design ( imho ) . The ONLY part of DevExpress I would suggest is the XtraReports tool , it generally gets very good reviews if you google it . But , yes will check GrapeCity

Tom , Craig is prob one of the best VFP-dotNet converts you will find anywhere , take my views as just intended to be helpful. Also def go for SQl Server if you are not mandated to MySql

 

[foxmuldr2]

I would not hesitate to go forward with VFP as a new app solution. It has proven itself to be reliable, functional, fast, and extensible. There is still nothing that comes close to it (without bloat, without fee-for-service, without other factors which VFP does well without).

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin

 

[clipper01]

Craig , ActiveReports from GrapeCity is superb, many thanks for highlighting it .

Tom , just sticking to the reports options ; you asked about RDLC , which is the 'free' report tool that comes with Sql Server . I initially suggested DevExpress and Craig suggested ActiveReports from GrapeCity. I had not known about this, so downloaded a test version , it is SUPERB . Pretty much the same feature set as VFP/Crystal and even a simple xCopy install just needs about 2mb of DLL's.

I've downloaded a test version , built sample C# app against a demo Access NorthWind data-base ( took less than 1 hour )

Cost is $700 for royalty-free versus $900 for DevExpress Reports ( and this,to my recollection takes about 100mb of DLL's). The kind of VFP that I do and presume others, will quite often not be allowed to run installers etc on servers , so a simple xCopy is often the only answer.

So , YES it does beat VFP for bloat !! . A typical dotNet app in VB/C# will be less than 1mb , you can pretty well assume that every PC has framework 2.0 ( 80% will have 3.5 ) installed , and the key need for reports , just adds another 2mb.

I've programmed VFP for 15 years , love it , it will "work" for another 10/15 at least , but do YOU want to be that business owner who finds his business critical application breaks in 5 years time and there are no VFP developers left around ( contrast with dotNet , get any IT intern in for a month ) . To me , that is the issue

Sean M

 

[TomSlayton]

Sean / Craig & Rick,

Thanks for the advice and information about the report writers. I'll mull it over for a while I have some time. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Best,

Tom

 

[craigber]

Good to hear about Active Reports. It's something that I need to play with a bit now that Grape City has acquired ComponentOne. Note that as part of the acquisition, Active Reports will be rebranded as ComponentOne Active Reports.

Full Disclosure: I am on the ComponentOne speaker bureau.

My biggest issue with DevExpress is the licensing files that you need. I have inherited several projects done with various versions of DevX and I continually have issues with missing/incorrect license files.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[foxmuldr2]

Sean,

"So , YES it does beat VFP for bloat!!"

Are you saying that a .NET app, because it might only be 1MB in executable size, beats VFP in terms of bloat?

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin

 

[GriffMG]

All I'm going to say is that the traditional 'Hello World' app creates quite a modest sized executable.

My conversion of fifteen years of Clipper apps development is currently 4.6MB, and has almost none of the
functionality yet (the clipper .exe is 12.6 MB)...

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

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

 

[clipper01]

Rick , re. bloat .

Comparison , similar to Griff .
example , typical small utility app to read accounts and create EDI , the VFP exe file is 150 kb , the C# exe file is 50 kb. This is standard forms-over-data stuff , no fancy somersaulting buttons.

User needs no other loads/run-times etc as all it needs is dotNet loaded.

Re Active Reports , have copied up report.zip to ftp.drivehq.com , welcome to get via e.g. filezilla ,
user itssguest password hello

This is a fully self-contained demo app in C#/ActiveReports , needs no installs , just copy. It INCLUDES the Access Northwind database , the ActiveReports dll's , the zip size is 1.8mb !!! , unzip size 5.7mb

So , yes , I am as surprised as you , but a standard forms-over-data C#/VB app will be about 30/50% of size of equivalent VFP , and is way better a method to talk to back-end SqlServer. Needs no installs , e.g. can run straight off a sharepoint folder etc etc

DevExpress and the likes are fine if you are e.g. selling a commercial Accounts app , but for the kind of utility LOB apps that VFP has generally done , plain ol' Winforms ( or WPF ) grids are fine , think Craig would agree

Sean M

 

[clipper01]

Put another 2 reports on ftp site , a CrossTab report and a MasterDetail report , these are the most often used VFP type I've used. Gotta say , am hugely impressed with ActiveReports , the samples code is excellent, look fwd to seeing the new ComponentOne branding ( GrapeCity is definitely a bit dodgy sounding ). For me , this removes last obstacle to dotNet apps building.

 

[craigber]

@clipper01: What are the issues with SSRS that you didn't like?

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[foxmuldr2]

You all are completely ignoring the fact that .NET (even 2.x, let alone later) installs for how many hundreds of megabytes??

VFP6 and later requires only about 10MB of DLLs, and it runs natively on hardware not through a VM.

VFP cannot be touched in terms of ease of use, performance, speed and reliability (once you get around a few known VFP issues that Microsoft should've fixed).

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin

 

[clipper01]

Mainly the table-design based methods, very difficult if not impossible to get the kind of precise layout , down to pixel almost , that u get with VFP , Crystal , XtraReports etc . Great as a " Business Intelligence " designer , for drill-downs , sub-group analysis etc ,where u dont really care that much about cosmetics , but for example , the CrossTab report I posted to the ftp site would be a good example of the kind of report that is 'easy' do to do in VFP , but difficult in SSRS , layout-wise.

It's also a bit tricky when using SSRS in local mode for desktop apps which is what I do , more geared as a corporate "reports server" I think .

So .... horses for courses

 

[clipper01]

Rick , unless you are still using Windows 95 , you can safely assume that every PC has dotNet 2.0 and about 80% have 3.5 installed so the "100 s of mb's" u talk about are irrelevent
( you might as well add in the whole windows 32 API, C run-times etc etc to the VFP requirement if u took that approach ).

 

[craigber]

@FoxMulder2: The .Net Framework is part of the OS now. So, it should already be there. The only time you would need to install it is if you use a newer version of the Framework that the user hasn't installed. But with it being pushed as part of Windows Update, it's likely it will already be there.

As for "VFP cannot be touched in terms of ease of use, performance, speed and reliability", that is just not true. SQL Server is more reliable (when was the last time you heard about SQL Server corruption) and is just as fast as VFP. Once you learn .Net, it's just as easy to create an app as VFP.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[foxmuldr2]

--As for "VFP cannot be touched in terms of ease of use, performance, speed and reliability", that is just not true. SQL Server is more reliable (when was the last time you heard about SQL Server corruption) and is just as fast as VFP. Once you learn .Net, it's just as easy to create an app as VFP.

SQL Server is a database back-end. VFP can use it, but there are speed issues there as well due to network traffic.

I'm talking about general processing, form development / maintenance, the ease with which classes are constructed / extended, and the base ability to do pretty much anything through extensions using DLLs -- and this on a Win2K or XP machine with less memory.

There is not a single limit that exists in VFP9 for a developer who can code. It may not be directly possible only inside of VFP9, but with the smallest addition of DLLs, everything is possible.

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin

 

[clipper01]

There is also another train coming down the track which might pole-axe VFP . So much emphasis on " cloud " computing now , it will soon make no sense for a small business to run physical servers . How many public cloud service providers will let you install VFP on their servers ???

 

[foxmuldr2]

clipper01, I see that coming too. Unlike most people I don't see any advantages in it. I see it only as a way for another entity to have control over your data, able to present you with the service you pay for, so you get value for the money you give them, but then they also have the added ability to mine your software, data, usage patterns, passwords, everything.

To me, cloud computing is very, very scary.

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin