>I am curious. There has been a lot of discussion here on UT regarding MS and what they are doing with VFP. I get the feeling that there are different foci as to what VFP is.
>
>So, I would like to ask these question.
>
>What is VFP to you? How would you categorize it?
>
>What would you say are your primary reasons for using the product? What does it do best?
>
>Thanks for your indulgence.


From a marketing perspective, I consider FoxPro as a whole to be an excellent database management system for small to medium sized companies, where the system is very data intensive, requires fast data access, and has a moderate amount of data (100-400mb). It runs well on small LANS or peer to peer networks, has excellent speed for ad-hoc queries, and it very reasonably priced.

From a developers perspective, FoxPro is an ideal tool for client-customized rapid application development. The graphical front end allows for WSYIWIG development of prototypes, which can in turn be quickly fleshed out to a full-blown application. The code can be easily debugged with the application tools, is ideal for low budget applications, and creates small executables that can be linked with other FoxPro applicaitons.

In the world of Visual FoxPro, this expands to a truly object oriented development enviornment. The customization and debugging qualities have been greatly improved, and it is still the best database solution for small businesses. The ODBC technology allows for moderate access of remote databases, and of course, it fully integrates with the Windows environment.

What FoxPro is NOT is the cure to all of my programming ills. It does not handle ODBC as well as other applications, it is still not fully integrated with the rest of Visual Studio, it is limited in its implementation of ActiveX objects, and worst of all, it suffers from constantly being in the shadow of its big brothers. Based on experience, I would not recommend it for developing a shrink-wrapped commercial application.

There is still no development tool I would rather use than FoxPro. For DOS and Windows 3.1, it is unparalleled. Visual FoxPro has probably got the most potential for growth of the Visual Studio development applications. Unfortunately, I don't think this potential will be fully realized, and VFP will fade into the background...if we let it go without a fight.

Bill