FoxPro Not an Endangered Species
Well known technical journalist Mary Jo Foley published an article in Redmond Magazine, named “FoxPro Not an Endangered Species”. (http://www.redmondmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1166) The article considers VFP in a very positive way and says that “FoxPro is going to matter for more than just the next few years”. Well, we all should see how it turns out in the near future.
Service Pack 1 for VFP9 was released
The Microsoft’s VFP team work continues and Service Pack 1 for VFP9 was released in December. The updated source code for VFP add-ons included with VFP installation disk will be available later. At the same time it was announced that there will be also VFP 9 Service Pack 2. The news about releasing Service Pack 1 for VFP 9 were also mentioned by Mary Jo Foley in Microsoft Watch news item “FoxPro Users: Rev Your Engines”. (http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1899724,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535)
TIOBE Programming Community Index for December 2005 listed Visual FoxPro at position 20
Interesting news came from Tiobe.com. This site publishes monthly index that gives an indication of the popularity of different programming languages. TIOBE Programming Community Index for December 2005 listed Visual FoxPro at position 20, jumping up 31 points. (http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm) VB.Net is listed at position 15. Tiobe uses the popular search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN to calculate the ratings. One can argue about the different languages comparison methodic or principles of including one of another language to the list, but the fact itself is worth mentioning.
Standard Version (VPM Standard 9.0) free for every VFP developer
ProMatrix, the well known application framework producer, was giving away their Standard Version (VPM Standard 9.0) free for every VFP developer until the end of 2005. (http://www.promatrix.com/vpme/vpms01.htm) Such a step may give all VFP developers a new spin in VFP framework competition. Having a proven commercial framework, even in standard version, may satisfy a lot of developers as it is. Also the developers who take advantage of this generous offer later may upgrade to the latest full version after studying and finding out how this framework suits their needs.
Whil Hentzen announced the Great Lakes Great Database Workshop
In the middle of December Whil Hentzen announced that Great Lakes Great Database Workshop will be back on April 21-24, 2006. (http://www.hentzenwerke.com/conferences/glgdw2006.htm) We can only welcome Whil back, and are very happy to see GLGDW back again in the list of VFP conferences for 2006. Whil promised that this conference will be different from the previous ones and will be dedicated to the best practices in VFP development. As before the conference will be held over the weekend in Milwaukee.
New VFP book: Taming Visual FoxPro's SQL
New VFP book is available from Hentzenwerke Publishing. It is called “Taming Visual FoxPro's SQL” by Tamar Granor. (http://www.hentzenwerke.com/catalog/tamingvfpsql.htm) This book is dedicated to Visual Fox Pro’s data handling capabilities using SQL commands. Tamar is one the most recognizable experts in VFP SQL. For many years she was giving the presentations on this subject at VFP conferences. This new book summarizes Tamar's SQL expertise and it's about time, as there were major changes to VFP SQL implementation in VFP versions 8 and 9. Dozens of real-world examples from the book demonstrate different solutions.
Visual FoxPro application got Bill Gates attention
The Visual FoxPro application written by one of the Universal Thread members got Bill Gates attention. (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/homeusers/awards/sports.mspx) From Don Higgins, UT member: "I wanted the FoxPro community to know about a success story with FoxPro. One of my customers won Microsoft's "Start Something Amazing" Contest using my software which was developed in Visual FoxPro. Bill Gates himself got a first hand look at this program on the 10th of this month while congratulating the winner. Since this was an international competition I was very happy to see a FoxPro program help win the contest.”
