What to use after FoxPro 4

[jimstarr]

My client has about 8 existing FoxPro applications that I developed and maintain for them. They like them as is and are happy to leave them alone for a while.

But now they want to develop several major new systems and are questioning the wisdom of doing this new development in VFP, a platform they worry may be unusable in say, ten years. So they want to know, what is everybody migrating to as the next step after FoxPro? I told them I'd ask the experts here.

Also, are their fears justified? As a business owner, would you do major new development in VFP?

Thanking you in advance. I intend to show your replies to the client.

Jim

 

[Mike Lewis]

Jim,

a platform they worry may be unusable in say, ten years.

Why on earth would it be? If a VFP application works today, there's nothing that's going to happen in the next ten years to prevent it from working.

Also, are their fears justified?

Personally, I'm certain they are not.

That said, these are your clients, and if they feel they want to move to a different platform, you have to go along with it. I would point out to them the pros and con of VFP vs other tools, but ultimately, it's their choice.

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk

 

[jimstarr]

Thanks, guys.

To be more clear, some of the applications in question are not run in-house but are packages given to and used by their customers. So the apps must be able to run under just about any OS, at least the newer ones.

Also, the only thing I know is FoxPro!!! What are the viable options for desktop applications? I'm a total neophyte in this area.

Jim

 

[Olaf Doschke]

After a good day of work in foxpro I often use/interact with one or more of these:

-family
-friends
-food
-books
-tv
-internet

You could opt for Visual Studio .Net, which is the trend.

Since you ask about options I assume you want other options besides this obvious one. Well, in general if you want to support most OSes, you'd opt for Web applications rather than desktop.

It has the advantage of giving you more control about who uses the software how much, how often and last not least, see what errors occur, which enables you to do faster bugfixing.

If I'd want my app to work on as many platforms like Windows, Mac and Linux, I'd opt for Qt (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit)).

You can choose a language of your likes, there are many bindings for Qt from C++ over Java to Python, which three by themselves are cross platform languages.

Or again use .Net and for other platforms than Windows use Mono (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)),

with the disadvantage, that .Net as the original to the Mono clone is always ahead in it's features.

I hope you already know GUINEU, VFP Studio and Etecnologia's VFP Compiler, which all go in the .Net direction.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[GriffMG]

I'm with Mike and, well, Mike!

I'm still developing in VFP - on version 9 for all new stuff, older versions where appropriate.

It works now, and (mostly) works under Vista, which is probably as big an environmental change as you're likely to have in the next 10 years... so I wouldn't worry too much.

Personally, I sell my systems all over the place and they have to be installable, runable and supportable on a variety of hardware (all PC based of course).

This is where VFP really shows its mettle - just install the app and away you go. Nothing to configure, no miniSQL server to worry over, easy peasy and dead reliable.

I think it's good for a bit longer, so hang in there.

I do write some web front ends now, but that is really hard work for me - you have to work in four languages at the same time! HTML, VBScript, JavaScript and VFP... flippin' heck

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[dgrewe]

Go Look at "Python"

David W. Grewe Dave

 

[ronald777]

What do i use after foxpro?

i will use foxpro again

This language is so mature. A developer with good skills can make a good living with it. I am sure.

I was thinking a little bit deeper about foxpro as language these days.
I must say, I always blamed M$ for NOT continuing development of foxpro.
But now, i think it is not M$ who stopped devlopment of foxpro. No, it were the talented developers who run away from foxpro, who makes the decision for M$ easier.
M$ knows it, thats why they have this smart MVP program. and i know it too now

My thoughts , my 2 cents

 

[GriffMG]

To be fair my SQL is a bit limited, so I didn't count that!

Martin

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[JanBucek]

What do i use after foxpro?

Ask me after 5 - 10 years, it is too early now.

 

[crabgrass]

A business that distributes your apps to its customers? Sounds like a natural for web apps to me. But its not for the faint hearted. As said previously you get into multi languages and the debugging is a pain. The learning curve is a lot like first learning VFP. But I think that's where the future is. And you can still use VFP as the main engine. If the data volume is such that VFP can handle it, I would stick with it as the back end.