VFP or What?

[YoungCol]

I am in the process of developing some new small business applications for a client but need to make a decission as to what platform to use. I have been programming in FoxPro since ver 2.5 and migrated to VFP 7. I like it because I know it. I am just surprised that it never took off.

My question is :-

Are there any other database platforms which I could concider? My client is affraid of FoxPro as there does not seem to be much support for it out there. Please exclude VB and Access in anty suggestions you may have.

There seems to be a big jump from VFP to systems like Oracle and SAP development.

Is there nothing in between?

Thanks to those who can help!

 

[rgbean]

Consider reading / sending your client to

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~VFPSuccessStories~VFP

for a list of notable VFP projects. This doesn't include a number of "hidden" VFP code products like AccPac (SBT) and Visual AccountMate accounting suites.
Also go to

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/prodinfo/ballmer.asp

to see what Microsoft sees as VFP's future (I'm sure he's heard of Steve Balmer!).

VFP is one of the few products positioned for the small / medium business that's too large for Access, but can't really afford Oracle / SQL Server and all their "overhead".

Rick

 

[hdc]

If the xbase is finally obsolete, I'll bet VFP is the final one to out. There is not much choice nowaday as many similar products (like Clipper & DBASE) have stopped development.
As Linux and MySQL is very mature nowaday, it is a good idea to have a look on them. This combination is very cheap (Linux is free, MySQL costs $200, the hardware requirement is very low). However VFP can still serve the role of user interface and front-end. Just leave the job of handling query to MySQL. MySQL has a far higher "wisdom" than VFP for this job. If you use VFP in this way, I can't see the doom of VFP in visible future.
A new trend is web-base database programming (like PHP). If I am a teenage and start to learn all over again, I'll choose this. The future is much more promising.
I'm living in Hong Kong. VFP support is also a headache here. Young guys all go to learn PHP and ASP. I am one of the last old "fox" here.
Hope this post can give you some light.

 

[AChiado]

An alternative to VFP-MySql is to use VFP as a front-end and a free database like InterBase 6 Open Edition or (better) FireBird. So you take advantage from client/server power and you can continue to use a familiar language like VFP. You can read and write your data using a ODBC driver or trought native API.

Take a look at

http://www.ibphoenix.com/

Regards Andrea C.P.
Italy