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Worth upgrade from v6?
- Thread starter ChrisMc
- Start date
Olaf Doschke
Programmer
As always, that depends on what you need.
Regarding VFP of course VFP9 is the best version (and always will be, as there will be no further version).
You'll get
VFP7
-Intellisense
-Readwrite Cursors
-Docview
VFP8
-Collections
-Bindevents
-Empty class
-Try..Catch..Finally error handling
VFP9
-Bindevents to windows messages
-Arrays>65K
-New reports
-New field types (better SQL server compliance for remote views/spt cursors)
-far better SQL (subselects eg)
I surely missed even some biggies.
In short you get IDE enhancements, productivity enhancements compared to VFP6, that should compensate update costs quite fast.
Bye, Olaf.
Regarding VFP of course VFP9 is the best version (and always will be, as there will be no further version).
You'll get
VFP7
-Intellisense
-Readwrite Cursors
-Docview
VFP8
-Collections
-Bindevents
-Empty class
-Try..Catch..Finally error handling
VFP9
-Bindevents to windows messages
-Arrays>65K
-New reports
-New field types (better SQL server compliance for remote views/spt cursors)
-far better SQL (subselects eg)
I surely missed even some biggies.
In short you get IDE enhancements, productivity enhancements compared to VFP6, that should compensate update costs quite fast.
Bye, Olaf.
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Chris,
Are you a "serious" VFP user? Are you a professional developer? Is VFP is an important tool in your work?
If Yes, there's no doubt .... upgrade as soon as you can. The huge accumulated benefits of VFP 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 will quickly repay the investment.
But if you are just dabbling in VFP, or are a hobby programmer, it would be harder to justify the cost.
For serious professional developers, you've got to have the best tools for the job. VFP 9.0 is so superior to VFP 6.0 that you would be doing yourself a disservice by not upgrading.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk
Are you a "serious" VFP user? Are you a professional developer? Is VFP is an important tool in your work?
If Yes, there's no doubt .... upgrade as soon as you can. The huge accumulated benefits of VFP 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 will quickly repay the investment.
But if you are just dabbling in VFP, or are a hobby programmer, it would be harder to justify the cost.
For serious professional developers, you've got to have the best tools for the job. VFP 9.0 is so superior to VFP 6.0 that you would be doing yourself a disservice by not upgrading.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk
- Thread starter
- #4
Hi Guys
When I started it was Fox Software and Foxplus, faster than anything on the market with brilliant support. When MS bought the company I kept up with upgrades but my last major project was in VB and I stopped upgrading VFP. Now a pure database project is rearing its head so I don't want to start it in the wrong language. If VFP9 is good (and it sounds like it is), then ok, I'll give Bill a few more pounds but if over the intervening years another database program has appeared which is better, I'd rather go down that route even though it would mean learning the language from scratch.
Thanks for your input
Chris
When I started it was Fox Software and Foxplus, faster than anything on the market with brilliant support. When MS bought the company I kept up with upgrades but my last major project was in VB and I stopped upgrading VFP. Now a pure database project is rearing its head so I don't want to start it in the wrong language. If VFP9 is good (and it sounds like it is), then ok, I'll give Bill a few more pounds but if over the intervening years another database program has appeared which is better, I'd rather go down that route even though it would mean learning the language from scratch.
Thanks for your input
Chris
Chris
First, it is fair to say, I think, that there is NO better desktop, LAN-based, database than VFP 9.0
However, most of Micrososoft's future application development tools revolve around the use of SQL Server (more money!) but more generally, the issues of security (DBF files are easily hacked, deleted and even corrupted) and database size (VFP is limited to 2Gb per file) may force you to look at using a back end server (maybe MySQL) as a data store in the longer term. However, this does not preclude you from developing your application in VFP, and even using a VFP database initially - PROVIDING that you design it sensibly.
VFP 9 includes native tools (CursorAdapters) that if used correctly can make your application database independent. Alternatively you can do (as I do) and use a set of VFP Data Classes that also make the application database independent (for details see the "Class Based Data Management" paper which is downloadable from my website at
If that interests you, contact me directly for the latest version of the code...
First, it is fair to say, I think, that there is NO better desktop, LAN-based, database than VFP 9.0
However, most of Micrososoft's future application development tools revolve around the use of SQL Server (more money!) but more generally, the issues of security (DBF files are easily hacked, deleted and even corrupted) and database size (VFP is limited to 2Gb per file) may force you to look at using a back end server (maybe MySQL) as a data store in the longer term. However, this does not preclude you from developing your application in VFP, and even using a VFP database initially - PROVIDING that you design it sensibly.
VFP 9 includes native tools (CursorAdapters) that if used correctly can make your application database independent. Alternatively you can do (as I do) and use a set of VFP Data Classes that also make the application database independent (for details see the "Class Based Data Management" paper which is downloadable from my website at
If that interests you, contact me directly for the latest version of the code...
- Thread starter
- #6
Andy - I've had a look at your paper & I'm VERY impressed. An elegant solution and clearly defined. The consensus seems to be that VFP9 is still a good platform so I'll update. When I've absorbed the new features I'll take you up on your offer of the latest version of the code - I'll email via your website.
Many thanks for the help. Best regards, Chris
Many thanks for the help. Best regards, Chris
ChrisMc:
I'm curious. How much do you think Bill Gates personally gets from the sale of one copy of VFP? If you really feel that way, then perhaps you should move on to something else. Oh, one more thing you should know. The EULA has changed since VFP6 and now requires that you run VFP on a Windows machine, so you've got to buy that too.
Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual FoxPro MVP, Author, CrysDev: A Developer's Guide to Integrating Crystal Reports"
I'm curious. How much do you think Bill Gates personally gets from the sale of one copy of VFP? If you really feel that way, then perhaps you should move on to something else. Oh, one more thing you should know. The EULA has changed since VFP6 and now requires that you run VFP on a Windows machine, so you've got to buy that too.
Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual FoxPro MVP, Author, CrysDev: A Developer's Guide to Integrating Crystal Reports"
VFP 6 was long considered the first solid VFP release. Yet it did have some quirks. By far version 9.0 SP1 (SP2 is in beta) is so much more stable and of couse hase the extensively enlarged feature set.
As Olaf said above, version 9.0 SP2 is the last one. Microsoft has built it to be extensible for add-on code, but there will be no version 10. That means it will remain a 32-bit product. Will that still satisfy your business requirements?
As Olaf said above, version 9.0 SP2 is the last one. Microsoft has built it to be extensible for add-on code, but there will be no version 10. That means it will remain a 32-bit product. Will that still satisfy your business requirements?
- Thread starter
- #9
Hi Craig - your point that Bill Gates gets pennies from me when I purchase an upgrade is spurious: he owns the computing world and is worth billions. I've never decried anybody's success but I think it's sad that nobody can compete with MS - if they get too successful, MS simply buys them. I have to work in the real world so must use MS products but, to be frank, if there was a real alternative I'd take it.
dbMark - V6 is the version I have but considering the (sensible) points made I've decided to upgrade to 9. Thanks for the input.
ChrisMc
dbMark - V6 is the version I have but considering the (sensible) points made I've decided to upgrade to 9. Thanks for the input.
ChrisMc
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