Spencer,

I was about to kick Force into this thread when I saw this.

I still have a couple of Force applications still out there (yet to be converted to VFP). Yes, it is *very* fast. There was a company in Spring, TX (near Houston) that was still supporting the Force compiler as recently as '97.

Another advantage: Could link directly with C object code.

Another disadvantage: No SQL syntax at all. Of course, being a dBase language, that is to be expected. Also, I can't get applications to compile and link under W2K *grin*.

I believe Doug Dodge also did some work in Force in the past.


>Hi,
>
>I noticed your posting regarding VFP/xBase history and have, just now glanced, at your web site.
>
>May I ask, is the scope of this project more limited to FoxPro or, as it appears, does it try to include something about the many xBase variants?
>
>If you wish to include multiple xBase flavors, I would love to see my sentimental favorite included, Sophco's Force compiler.
>
>Force came out in the late 80's and pretty much disappeared in the early 90's. It was a true native code compiler that was reasonable compatible with much dBASE III code. Its .EXEs executed *very* fast. They were, of course, small .EXEs owing to the fact that it was neither interpreted nor used pcode.
>
>It's negatives, it seems to me, included its own incompatible index files, inability to support the & macro command, and no integrated browse. Early versions were buggy but they became much better. It was strongly typed, a negative for some and a positive for others. It was arguably late to the party since by the late 80's most folks had coalesced into the Ashton Tate, Nantucket, or Fox Software camps. Finally, there was never any Windows version.
>
>Again, my sentimental favorite. Hope something about Force might be of interest to others.
>
>Thanks for your interesting work!