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From: awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: program to use (Clipper or dBase)
Summary: Clipper is not dBASE
Message-ID: <694@dbase.A-T.COM>
Date: 31 Aug 90 18:11:48 GMT
References: <34247@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 28

In article <34247@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, v105mahs@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Peter P Donohue) writes:
> 
>    I am going to have to work on a MS-DOS PC-based database project 
> later this semester and was wondering which program to use.  A short 
> while ago I was given Clipper...
> ...at school, they use and support dBase IV...
>
>    Other than the fact that Clipper is compileable, how different is it
> from dBase?  If I create the program in Clipper and give the teacher the 
> code, is it similar enough to dBase that he could understand it (he 
> hasn't used Clipper before)?

Clipper is a fine product.  However, it includes many extensions to the
language implemented in dBASE III PLUS which may surprise your teacher.
Although you could force yourself to use only the portion of the language
that Clipper has in common with dBASE IV, it would require committment.
dBASE IV, for its part, includes extensions which Clipper does not--MDX
files, for example.  Using Clipper would mean not only forcing yourself
not to take advantage of their extensions, but losing out on the dBASE IV
extensions, as well.

I've recommended Clipper here in the past (I'm speaking for myself, not
my employer, obviously) but it doesn't sound like the way to your
teacher's heart in this case.  Besides, you'll like dBASE IV's form
designer, full-screen debugger and, of course, the interactive interpreter
for development.

/alastair/