Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!linus!raybed2!rayssd!anomaly!mpd
From: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Clipper 5.0
Message-ID: <3875@anomaly.sbs.com>
Date: 14 Oct 90 12:34:03 GMT
References: <1330@forty2.UUCP>
Organization: Small Business Systems, Inc., Esmond, RI 02917
Lines: 57

eichi@forty2.UUCP (Stefan Eichenberger) writes:
>   - How much work would it be to make it up and running under 5.0 without
>     using new features of the language?

I've merely taken 10,000 lines of S'87 code and recompiled it under S'90
with a few minor changes. The big changes were in my ERRORSYS replacements.

>   - Can I pack the *.dbt memo field files in 5.0 short of copying the
>     entire database to another file, which currently breaks my memory
>     boundries.

I don't believe so. However, since you can have up to 64mb of virtual
"swap space", memory shouldn't really be a problem.

>   - Pack currently has insufficient memory - does anybody know, whether
>     requirements changed?

>   - do I gain in load size with the new automatic overlay structure?

My load module increased in size about 50k, although the resultant EXE
was about 100k larger (ie: program might be 275k, but EXE shows as 375k.)

>   - has the memoedit() function been improved - the number of things
>     you can do to a text to edit it, was a bit limited in S'87.

I beleive functionality is about the same.

-=-

The major benefits I have seen thusfar are:

* Preprocessor "mapping" of commands to allow you to translate you own
  commands into valid control structures, ie:

  @xx,yy SAY blah WHEN somenum>0

  is not a legal statement... But you can include a #command directive to
  process it as:

  IF somenum>0 ; @xx,yy SAY blah ; ENDIF

  Which is a real nice feature, since it makes your code readable.

* The Codeview-style debugger has been a tremendous help in debugging new
  applications development, though there seems to be some bugs in it still.

-=-

Overall, is it worth "porting"? For stable applications probably not, but
for ongoing, or new development, I would say go ahead.

MD
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