Where have you gone, Visual FoxPro? (Article: David Worthington)

From SDTimes:

Indeed, the FoxPro community remains engaged, as evidenced by activity on CodePlex, Microsoft’s primary Web site for Shared Source projects.

“It has added around 15 new capabilities to VFP in just the last year-and-a-half,” said Griver. “They localized VFP into multiple languages, and have done more work to integrate it into [Visual Studio] Team Foundation Server. It’s a pretty amazing thing.”

“There were always rumors that [Microsoft] would kill it off; the community said, ‘Just give it to us,’ and it looks like [the community process works]. It’s kind of cool,” said Homnick.

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According to Griver, Visual Studio’s data tools are rooted in VFP, and in a similar fashion, LINQ (Language Integrated Query) “owes a debt” to FoxPro by building on some of its remote view data query capabilities. “When you create something new, it is created from an amalgam of what has come before,” he said.

Duffy agreed, saying, “When [Microsoft] first showed us LINQ, it was kind of like, ‘Yeah, we’ve had that in FoxPro for a long time, what’s new here?’

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What’s old is often new again. Like dBASE, FoxPro was used to create applications departmentally—often without IT’s knowledge. Today, service-oriented architectures emphasize service reuse, while enterprise mashups empower business users to create their own governed applications out of services—again, without IT’s blessing.

“The industry goes in circles,” Griver remarked. But the circle may be collapsing into a dot.

Future of Foxpro (Thread: MSDN)

From here:

Financial Investment companies here in the US often use the phrase "past performance is not an indicator of future returns". The same holds true with software. Just because old applications continue to run fine does not mean they will continue to do so in the future. For example, there are currently issues with FoxPro and Visual FoxPro running on Vista. I doubt Microsoft will go back and fix these issues with Fox versions that are no longer supported.

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We have been a VFP shop for almost 10 years. It is a great environment for quick development and stable applications. That said, we're done with new development in VFP. Here's why:

-The won't be a 64-bit version. In my opinion, this is the biggest end-of-life indicator for this product--even more important than Microsoft's support until 2014. Sure Vista and server 2007 have 32-bit compabitility mode; but I expect by the next Windows OS releases (3-5 years down the road), running 32-bit software will be a dying trend. Some larger companies may even have initiatives to run 64-bit software whereever possible. Why process 1/2 the bits at a time when you don't have to? By 2014 VFP will be equivalent of modern day Cobol. There will be a bunch of legacy apps left that should have been converted years ago.
-Have you seen the new .NET 3.0 stuff? WPF offers extremely flexible anchoring capabilities--something that works okay in VFP, but not great. WCF Services offer new levels of sercurity and binding methods.
-DLINQ and XLINQ. These 2 language enhancements are going to save .NET developers lots of time. Simple tasks will be simple code. Plus there is a tool that will build business objects from a relational database.

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To say I'm certain would be an overstatement. It's sort of a gut feeling comprised from the last 3 years of VFP-related information. There are almost no new books...there isn't currently a plan for version 10...the publication we were getting for over 7 years became redundant and focused on specific uses with limited use...the newsgroups I watch have slowed down to a crawl--sometimes no messages for a several days...etc.

Another indicator--the Sedna code has to do with interaction between VFP and VS, but I haven't seen anything that gives VFP the ability to host managed code. We can access managed code, but we can't use the nice interfaces or benefit from the new controls. I think we're being quietly coerced away from VFP to VS. They're giving us tools that expose us to VS, but in truth they want us to see what we're missing. Maybe they're right. I haven't used VS enough yet to know for sure. I do know ClickOnce deployment is very nice. In 15 lines of code I can have my application automatically check for new versions upon load and update itself.

My hope is that development time will significaly reduce and my users will still experience a signficant difference. My biggest fear is that development and/or training time will increase significantly.

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This has been almost a touchy subject for me. I started using foxpro about 3 years ago and as soon as I really got into it I was hooked. When I heard that VFP was being "phased out", I was, to say the least, somewhat devistated. I keep hoping to hear that Microsoft has changed their mind and will continue to release new versions, but I'm not as hopeful as I used to be. I haven't personally dived very much into the new .NET world yet, but I see that it is the way to start heading. Not only is there less support and less forums and what have you, there's also quite a lot less VFP jobs out there and most of them that you do find is usually converting legacy code as opposed to creating new innovative apps. I'm not really looking forward to it (yet) but I'm going to have to start really delving into .NET - gotta keep up with the times.

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Microsoft has never said that VFP.Next (Sedna) will be version 10. I talked to Alan Griver (yag) last month in Germany and he said the decision on what to call it or how to package it hasn't been made yet. My bet is that it will be more of a service pack or "plus pack" or "VFP9-R2".

Also, Microsoft has stated that there are no current plans for anything after Sedna, but that's the way it's always been with each release. That the next version hadn't been planned, but there was one.

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Microsoft want everyone to believe that 64-bit is the way to go, but unfortunately this is a rosy-tinted view of the real business world. Companies simply do not upgrade hardware and software just because Microsoft release something new! Things like "Return on Investment" come into play and unless there is a good reason to spend money on new machines and operating systems it just wont happen! Imagine the cost of switching thousands of users over to 64-bit and then look at the benefit of spending that money....

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At some point 64-bit still seem inevitable. My Dell rep tells me that many larger businesses cycle their hardware every 3-4 years. In smaller businesses hardware lifespan doesn't usually exceed 5-6 years. At some point the purchase of new hardware is inevitable. If the new hardware is 64-bit, VFP ends up in "Compatibility Mode". That's a bad place for any software product to end up.

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Regarding 64-bit, I believe it's sort of over-rated and is being hyped pretty heavily. You know IBM AS/400s had 64 bit chips and OSs in the early 90s. Plus you just had to recompile existing apps to get them to run as 64-bit. While the AS/400 is popular with certain industries, I bet most people have never even heard of it or it's capabilities let alone beat a path to it to take advantage of the 64-bit capabilities. Some things I've heard about Intel/MS 64-bit - it will only have advantages for extremely large databases and may actually slow regular applications...

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we know that businesses in Africa and other developing areas worry about cost and maintainability given how low GDP is in many of these countries. Given that most westerners use only a small part of the capability of packages like VFP 3>, excel 3> , is there not an argument for the startup distribution company in (say) Zambia to be able to use an earlier OS and an earlier software like VFP 5 to be made avialable and supported locally rather than tell them they need the latest bells n whistles super dooper OS and software when in reality it could be years before they need this capacity. If we in the west/north truly want to help Africa, it seems crazy we basically want to bin so much fabulous software prematurely. What do you 'pros' reckon?

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The most ambitious post I've found (Thread: MSDN Forum)

From here:

i will tell you one thing about VFP future, you may surprised but it's TRUE " VFP will be the MOST common language through the next 5 years " how ? i will answer you until now we now three type of database applications (Desktop,Client-Server & Web applications), VFP is nice in Desktop applications and helpful in Client-Server beside SQL Server & Oracle and not bad in web applications( there are support for web service). but VFP not like .NET languages. the direction of VFP + VS.NET + SQL Server = "GREAT PROGRAMMING TOOLS" is common but for VFP Developers the others see VS.NET + SQL Server = "Great" , and they ignore VFP, because they don't know it. this is the present, but what about the future ? the future is not only "Web Applications" , there are 1 - Internet (2) & Grid Computing 2 - new programming paradigm replacement for Object Oriented Visual FoxPro will be the best programming language that support the technology of the future, but this will not depend on VFP team in microsoft , this will be the job of open source programmers (using VFP) Object Oriented which is the BASIC BLOCK of VS.NET is not so nice as we want from modern programming paradigm , OOP was very nice in the world of GUI and Information systems due to it's features (Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Composition, ...etc) but now we need new programming paradigm which take in mind (Complex data structure, event-driven,client-server,distributed systems, embedded systems , Grid Computing) there are now 3 new programming paradigms ( Agent Oriented, Language Oriented & DoubleS (Super Server) ) AOP & LOP are away from our discussion , SSP (DoubleS Paradigm) will target VFP SOON and this new programming paradigm will add new power to VFP so it will be the better programming langauge the new paradigm is based on a lot of new concepts (OOP Simulation , Networks, Servers, Chemial System, Electrical System, Human Interaction) http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/doublesvsoop this programming paradigm need contributes from professionals VFP Developers , it's BIG project the advantages of the new programming paradigm 1 - OOP simulation but better than Pure OOP 1 - 100% OOP Power 2- Reduce need to inheritance by 50% 3- more encapsulation 4 - ***Dynamic classes*** which can be created and deleted like OBJECTS in runtime 2 - take complex data strucure in mind (Structue programming ignore data structure, OOP present only encapsulation for it, but SSP present organisation, virtual database mangment system for it based on chemical system 3 - take event-driven in mind 4- take client-server in mind (veto system) - best than AOP in that point 5 - and more... THAN I CAN WRITE (THERE ARE 43 PAGES DESCRIBE ONLY WHAT IS DOUBLES ? ) DoubleS paradigm support now xBase languages like Clipper,xHarbour & xBase++ and will target VFP soon. --- I agree about a bright future for VFP apart from MS in the form of Open Source developments. Look for VFP to be more like a PHP or PERL type language with many developers the world over making improvements and the whole community benefiting. Once this gets rolling enough, MS might even jump in and help out.

On the old line "Many old Fox apps still run." (Thread: Microsoft)

From here:

Financial Investment companies here in the US often use the phrase "past performance is not an indicator of future returns". The same holds true with software. Just because old applications continue to run fine does not mean they will continue to do so in the future. For example, there are currently issues with FoxPro and Visual FoxPro running on Vista. I doubt Microsoft will go back and fix these issues with Fox versions that are no longer supported.

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As far as Vista is concern, there is still hope of SEDNA update which will make foxpro interface similar to vista. Beside VFP will work on Vista (as 32 bit). But still we dont know what will be there after Vista.

---

We have been a VFP shop for almost 10 years. It is a great environment for quick development and stable applications. That said, we're done with new development in VFP. Here's why:

-The won't be a 64-bit version. In my opinion, this is the biggest end-of-life indicator for this product--even more important than Microsoft's support until 2014. Sure Vista and server 2007 have 32-bit compabitility mode; but I expect by the next Windows OS releases (3-5 years down the road), running 32-bit software will be a dying trend. Some larger companies may even have initiatives to run 64-bit software whereever possible. Why process 1/2 the bits at a time when you don't have to? By 2014 VFP will be equivalent of modern day Cobol. There will be a bunch of legacy apps left that should have been converted years ago.
-Have you seen the new .NET 3.0 stuff? WPF offers extremely flexible anchoring capabilities--something that works okay in VFP, but not great. WCF Services offer new levels of sercurity and binding methods.
-DLINQ and XLINQ. These 2 language enhancements are going to save .NET developers lots of time. Simple tasks will be simple code. Plus there is a tool that will build business objects from a relational database.

---

There are almost no new books...there isn't currently a plan for version 10...the publication we were getting for over 7 years became redundant and focused on specific uses with limited use...the newsgroups I watch have slowed down to a crawl--sometimes no messages for a several days...etc.

Another indicator--the Sedna code has to do with interaction between VFP and VS, but I haven't seen anything that gives VFP the ability to host managed code. We can access managed code, but we can't use the nice interfaces or benefit from the new controls. I think we're being quietly coerced away from VFP to VS. They're giving us tools that expose us to VS, but in truth they want us to see what we're missing. Maybe they're right. I haven't used VS enough yet to know for sure. I do know ClickOnce deployment is very nice. In 15 lines of code I can have my application automatically check for new versions upon load and update itself.

---

This has been almost a touchy subject for me. I started using foxpro about 3 years ago and as soon as I really got into it I was hooked. When I heard that VFP was being "phased out", I was, to say the least, somewhat devistated. I keep hoping to hear that Microsoft has changed their mind and will continue to release new versions, but I'm not as hopeful as I used to be. I haven't personally dived very much into the new .NET world yet, but I see that it is the way to start heading. Not only is there less support and less forums and what have you, there's also quite a lot less VFP jobs out there and most of them that you do find is usually converting legacy code as opposed to creating new innovative apps. I'm not really looking forward to it (yet) but I'm going to have to start really delving into .NET - gotta keep up with the times.

---

Microsoft want everyone to believe that 64-bit is the way to go, but unfortunately this is a rosy-tinted view of the real business world. Companies simply do not upgrade hardware and software just because Microsoft release something new! Things like "Return on Investment" come into play and unless there is a good reason to spend money on new machines and operating systems it just wont happen! Imagine the cost of switching thousands of users over to 64-bit and then look at the benefit of spending that money....

---

Regarding 64-bit, I believe it's sort of over-rated and is being hyped pretty heavily. You know IBM AS/400s had 64 bit chips and OSs in the early 90s. Plus you just had to recompile existing apps to get them to run as 64-bit. While the AS/400 is popular with certain industries, I bet most people have never even heard of it or it's capabilities let alone beat a path to it to take advantage of the 64-bit capabilities. Some things I've heard about Intel/MS 64-bit - it will only have advantages for extremely large databases and may actually slow regular applications...

Rant & Responses on MS's "practice of killing markets" (Wiki: Fox.wikis.com)

From here:

The xbase market is gone. VFP's xbase roots are an irrelevancy or even possibly a negative in 2002. xbase was once the king/queen of development options and "FP vs dBase" the battle of the titans. Their demise was never on technical grounds, driven by politics and marketing until only MS has a mainstream tool in the area.
The "lay to waste" description isn't mine, but the once awesome xbase arena is certainly down to one. Sure MS continues to support this solitary player but it also does its best to promote the excitement in the theatre next door... and the audience (and we) respond to that. -- John Ryan
VFP represents the last bastion of the mid-range database/application development environment market. That's the category Microsoft is bent on destroying. This isn't about xBase, it's about the huge segment of the "database" market that once thrived with products like dBase, Clipper, Clarion, Delphi, FoxPro etc. I think you all know exactly what I'm talking about, and it's ridiculous to lump products like Access and SQL Server into this crowd, denying the existence of a very substantial and distinct category of which VFP is a part. It's also ridiculous to pretend that Microsoft is allowing this segment to thrive with its ongoing "commitment" to VFP. What a joke! Isn't it completely obvious what's going on here? They can't be too blatant about it, so they pretend to support VFP with one hand, while they hold it back with the other. Pretty soon the last vestiges of any competition wither and die, and then oops, well I guess this segment just happens to disappear altogether. Didn't everybody know we'd really be better off paying annual licence fees for SQL Server. So what if everyone loses, so long as Microsoft wins, right? Hey, this is business, so anything goes if it helps the bottom line, right? All's fair in love and war, but what about business? Say, isn't that what anti-trust laws are all about? Doesn't the notion of a competitive marketplace figure into this somewhere? Are the interests of society as a whole really being served by allowing Microsoft to kill off every category of software that doesn't fit into their plans for world domination? VFP isn't dying a natural death, it's getting a daily dose of arsenic from Microsoft, and if you guys are too dense to see that, you'll just have to wait for the autopsy report.

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Just because xBase used to be the "king" of data base apps it doesn't mean MS "killing" xBase is a bad thing. What langauges got left behind? The ones that didn't go OO. Thats not MS's fault, in fact, according to your logic you should be praising MS for making it OOP allowing it to stick around while its competition died. Also, as far as databases go, VFP's database is not the future. Sorry, thats the truth. The complete lack of security and maintainablility issues compred to MSDE or SQL Server make this xBase product a tough sell, especially in the middle of Microsoft's new "awakening" in security with "trustworthy computing"

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I just recently trained some public sector employees on SQL Server access from VFP. They were awestruck by the ease and simplicity of remote views AND the choice to use SQL dataset or xBase record oriented data manipulation from there. VFP database is an unsecure, weak and unreliable data store for anything but small apps, but the VFP cursor manipulation with SQL backend data can't be beat. If for nothing else, I sure hope VFP stays around for a long time for the middle tier. I see its benefits mainly in the middle tier data manipulation, secondarily as a way to create self contained and inexpensive database program solutions.

Les PInter on selling VFP apps (Post: Paalbalk Huissen)

From this thread:

Les Pinter has a nice strategy for selling VFP apps.
He first shows to his audience, most likely managers and budget-responsible people, the whole myriad of classes and possibilities of VB.Net of C# or whatever they can come up with.
He is driving them crazy with all the things you can do in .NET to a point where they ask him for a price to develop that must-have application XYZ.
He gives them the price and the time to deploy the app and tells them there is an alternative.... and then says, "nahhh, you probably won't be interested, it will cost you only 25% of the price I just mentioned but it won't be interesting of you". Well, those budget-responsible people ARE interested then, and then he shows them his "special framework, developed in C++, AKA VFP".

He drives their minds to a boiling point with another show-off from VFP and compares that with the things he just showed to his audience. And shows that it is indeed, remarkably quicker, and, what's more, cheaper!!

Poster disses YAG (Post: Spock of Vulcan)

From this thread:

Personally, I think it is a disservice to the Fox community that you are still around. Ever since you came to Microsoft, you have done nothing but try to kill the product and continuing your involvement will certainly ensure that happens. Please let someone with true interest in the product and community take over responsibility for Fox's future.