Hi Rich

Have you had any experience using the Apollo database engine with Delphi? I remember I tested it years ago and it was much faster than using the BDE. Since its server component communicates via TCP/IP it means your app can run locally or over the internet without changing anything other than the server IP address.

I see that Vista Software has completly re-written Apollo using Delphi and this new version will soon be available.

There are so many options available for database programming that I am not worried about the future of VFP.

Regards,
Simon


>Hi Tom,
>
>Delphi is a very clean and easy to use low-level dev language. Being cross platform to Linux somewhat by having the CLX classes it is definitely something to investigate. I woudl look at the following link to the OCTANE demo that was posted on this thread to see how easy it is to use your existing Delphi VCL code in managed .NET app under OCTANE.
>
>Once you learn that you have to declare every variable and function before it can be used, it's pretty much like coding in VFP. It's not xBase and you will be hunting for a while trying to find the equivilant functions in Delphi that we have in VFP. However, you can always write them yourself as well which I have done for several commands and put into my Delphi Class Libraries. However, what you don't have is the XBASE support for data movement and such like you do in VFP. However, you can purchase CODEBASE to link into your Delphi apps and have access to VFP data. I have a primitive database engine that I wrote for experimental purposes to use in the Report Engine to read and write FRX tables directly using pure Delphi code. Without adding support for index files it really didn't take that many hours to do. The most difficult part was the reading and tracking of the MEMO field data. You also don't have a COMMAND WINDOW that you can simply type in xBase commands into like you have in
>VFP. So, there are a lot things that you will miss when using Delphi. But for writing ActiveX controls and other components to be used in conjunction with VFP, I think it is the best tool going. I can definitely get a lot more done in Delphi over C/C++ in the same amount of time.
>
>OCTANE ON LINE DEMO
>http://www.borland.com/delphi/demo/octane_sneakpeek.html
>
>
>Next week in California is the Borland Developer's Conference. I wish I could have made gone.
>
>
>> Hi Rich, after personally seeing what you can do in your report engine a very compelling case can be made for Delphi.
>> If .NET is structured to be language independent (you can use VB.NET or C# or Delphi .NET) then why not
>> open up to Linux at the same time?
>
>> Strategically Delphi makes a lot of sense especially if Linux continues to take market share away from Windows.
>> After the poor at best marketing effort put forth by Microsoft regarding VFP I suspect a lot of VFP developer
>> will be very interested in OCTANE.
>
>> Keep us posted on future OCTANE developments - sounds explosive...:>)