Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!xenitec!timk From: timk@xenitec.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: FoxCode: present and future status Summary: Limited stuff Keywords: Fox Message-ID: <1990Apr14.012517.7278@xenitec.on.ca> Date: 14 Apr 90 01:25:17 GMT References: <15277@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Reply-To: timk@xenitec.UUCP (Tim Kuehn) Organization: TDK Consulting Services, Kitchener, ON, Canada Lines: 54 In article <15277@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Louis Englander) writes: >In the course of developing an application in FoxBase+/Mac, I've found >to me that the advantages are significant. The main problem is that Fox >doesn't seem to support it very well (their staff doesn't really know >how to use it), and documentation is minimal. The foxcode/gen/view stuff helps, and with a bit of effort I was able to decode the documentation to figure out what I needed to do. I've managed to write a system that will generate the complete "skeleton" for an application I'm working on, and I just have to fill in the program- specific stuff. The system I've written makes the tedious stuff easier since I don't have to hand code it all. >George Goley, in his new >book, says (basically) that FoxCode sucks and is not worth the trouble. What's the name of the book? I've never run across this author. IMHO - Foxcode/gen/view don't empirically "suck", it's got the potential to be something significantly useful - IF they had made the screen painter (foxview) more powerful and user-friendly. (I wouldn't exactly call it 'user-hostile', more like 'user-indifferent.') When Foxpro came out and there weren't any changes / improvements to the view/gen/code program set I could see, that's when I resolved to write my own painter/etc. to do the job. (Coming to a store near you!-) From where I'm looking at things, if these products were *properly* implimented and written, a reasonably good set of .gen files sent out with them, and a user-friendly screen interface implimented, this product could save untold hours of drudgery and keyboarding. But to get there's going to required a bit of work. >Am i making a mistake by getting too involved with FoxCode, without >_really_ knowing what i'm doing? If you haven't done a fair bit of coding in dbase or foxbase or clipper, enough to be able to recognize the patterns in the programs that pop-up in almost any application, then it'd probably be a mistake to try and do anything more than develop a good screen (or .fmt file) painter/generator. If you've done a good bit of programming, it'd be worth your while to give it a shot. Are there other developers out there >that use it? I'd like to see a discussion here about FoxCode, and also >find out how much expertise there is out there in netland. I use it - but I chafe at it's limitations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Timothy D. Kuehn TDK Consulting Services 871 Victoria St. North, Kitchener, voice: (519)-741-3623 Ontario, Canada N2B 3S4 DOS/Xenix - SW/HW. uC uP RDBMS !watmath!maytag!xenitec!timk timk@xenitec.on.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------