>This weekend I received and read 'Fox Tales' in less than 24 hours and have started to read it again. Like others here, I consider Fox a work of art, and it was interesting to see how it evolved. Dave Fulton comes across as a brilliant dictator, something I've heard elsewhere. Too bad for us that he sold. Who knows where Fox would be now. His team was tiny, but they were very good and the overall effort was intense.
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>Recomended.
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>Alex


I also enjoyed the book. There were two things which surprised me. One was what an ogre Dr. Dave was to work for. He comes through as brilliant, and usually the things he insisted on (to Kerry Nietz's irritation) seem in retrospect to have been the right decision. OTOH, having worked for tyrannical owners like that myself, it doesn't sound like a place I would want to have worked. By Nietz's account everyone was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with vacations actively discouraged. Not only that, it sounds like they made peanuts (until Microsoft bought them out).

The other surprising thing was Nietz's contempt for the online FoxPro community, which at that time was the FoxForum on Compuserve. In his view the users on the forum were whiny and demanding people who stood in the way of getting a finished product out the door. He quotes Dr. Dave at one point saying, "Why don't they shut the f**k up and give us their money?" He may have been joking but I wouldn't bet on it.

I agree with your recommendation. It won't break through to a general audience as "The Soul of the New Machine" did but for anyone who is or has been a FoxPro developer it is quite interesting. And it's a fast read.

Mike