Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: dBase IV Bug(s)? Message-ID: <1719@ccnysci.UUCP> Date: 25 Apr 89 00:26:53 GMT References: <1762@muvms1.bitnet> <54@dbase.UUCP> Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) Organization: City College of New York Lines: 39 In article <54@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: >dBASE IV is a tremendous improvement over the dBASE III PLUS language, and >Foxbase is merely a clone of III+. There are dozens of new commands and >functions, a sophisticated report writer, and so forth. There are reasons >for the 'new' Ashton Tate commands and there are a lot of useful things >that Foxbase+ can't do. (Of course, paper and pencil can be used to >_simulate_ dBASE IV, but, speaking realistically...) Yes, dBase IV is a tremendous improvement over dBase III+. Saying that FoxBase+ is only a clone of dBase III+ shows massive ignorance, however. Most of the dBase IV improvements have existed in FoxBase for quite a while (language improvements, that is). There are a few things that don't exist in Fox, and there are many things that Fox does that dBase iV still doesn't do. But I am not going to get into a features war- just listing the features of either product would take days. FoxPro is due about July 1 (slipped a little from the June 1 I was expecting). It will support all of the language enhancements in dBase IV (I know because I've used it. They're there). It will also have a user interface that will make you drool- They've done a good simulation of their Mac interface on character-based PCs (I didn't think a good emulation was possible, but they've done it). Just to give you an example, you can have multiple edit windows on one or many files, all at the same time, which can stay up while you execute code or work in the command window (which is the old dot prompt). The editor is excellent, BTW. >George Goley Jr, a knowledgable writer who may be completely unbiased, is >also the author of the only book about Foxbase+, an ad for which ships with >each copy of the software. I don't know him, but he's written books on other dBase variants and on dBase III+ as well, I think. I doubt that he's biased in any serious way. Regardless, read his article and decide for yourself whether he presents facts or opinion. --- Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet} alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (last resort)