Getting Started with dBASE - moving from dbase IV

Author

moving from dbase IV

Tony Esposito

2006-11-18, 7:12 pm

I'm a photographer who purchased dbase II or maybe it was dbase I back in 1982. I got my first computer & dbase at the same time. I needed a program to run my business. I had no idea at all how deep the pool was. Ignorance was a very powerful tool. I had
no idea how much I didn't know, or I'd have given up. To make a long story short, I eventually upgraded to dbase III, then IV version 2 and along the way wrote what I still think is some pretty good code. except for some minor upgrading, I did my last ser
ious programing maybe in 1995.

Tony Esposito

2006-11-18, 7:12 pm

Tony Esposito Wrote:

> I'm a photographer who purchased dbase II or maybe it was dbase I back in 1982. I got my first computer & dbase at the same time. I needed a program to run my business. I had no idea at all how deep the pool was. Ignorance was a very powerful tool. I ha
d no idea how much I didn't know, or I'd have given up. To make a long story short, I eventually upgraded to dbase III, then IV version 2 and along the way wrote what I still think is some pretty good code. except for some minor upgrading, I did my last s
erious programing maybe in 1995.
> I need to move to Vista soon (to support Photoshop and the need-for-speed in digital imaging) and it doesn't look like 16 bit windows applications or DOS applications will be supported. My programs are all command line programs-no forms are called-even
printing is command line driven. Can I move these programs or can they be upgraded and under what conditions?

john marshall

2006-11-19, 7:12 pm

Tony:
I can't speak for the Vista compatability, but I was in a very similar situation just over a year ago. I made the jump from dBase III to dBase Plus. Most of my code was "processing" and not interactive, so it was extremely easy to move it from dBIII
to dB Plus. There were three issues that I recall: The 'Then' of If/Then statements is now gone, and I had some strange results with some 'Set Relation to' links, and finally, fields now default to 'null' if the programmer neglects to initialize. This
baffles functions like 'sum' and 'count'.

That said, I have been very please with how far, rich and robust dBase Plus is as compared to what I was used to. Since your code is primarily process based, you could likely convert it and begin to develop Plus front end extensions as you become more
proficient. Similarly, there are many ways that you may wish to further upgrade you existing code to make it faster ... like replacing the 'Use' and xBase type file access with SQL based queries. My application showed about a 10x performance boost in ce
rtain instances.

As for Vista, perhaps Ken has some insights on the DBI status with this O/S.

Best of luck,

JM

Tony Esposito Wrote:

> Tony Esposito Wrote:
>
had no idea how much I didn't know, or I'd have given up. To make a long story short, I eventually upgraded to dbase III, then IV version 2 and along the way wrote what I still think is some pretty good code. except for some minor upgrading, I did my last
serious programing maybe in 1995.[color=darkred]
n printing is command line driven. Can I move these programs or can they be upgraded and under what conditions?[color=darkred]
>

David Kerber

2006-11-20, 7:14 pm

In article <MkYhEXxCHHA.1212@news-server>, espofoto@adelphia.net says...[color=darkred]
> Tony Esposito Wrote:
>
had no idea how much I didn't know, or I'd have given up. To make a long story short, I eventually upgraded to dbase III, then IV version 2 and along the way wrote what I still think is some pretty good code. except for
some minor upgrading, I did my last serious programing maybe in 1995.[color=darkred]
n printing is command line driven. Can I move these programs or can they be upgraded and under what conditions?

I haven't tried Vista (nor do I expect to for at least a year), but I'll
bet dBase IV ver 2 will run like a Cheetah on Vista; it does on XP.

--
Remove the ns_ from if replying by e-mail (but keep posts in the
newsgroups if possible).

Ken Mayer [dBVIPS]

2006-11-20, 7:14 pm

john marshall wrote:
> Tony:
> I can't speak for the Vista compatability, but I was in a very similar situation just over a year ago. I made the jump from dBase III to dBase Plus. Most of my code was "processing" and not interactive, so it was extremely easy to move it from dBII
I to dB Plus. There were three issues that I recall: The 'Then' of If/Then statements is now gone, and I had some strange results with some 'Set Relation to' links, and finally, fields now default to 'null' if the programmer neglects to initialize. Thi
s baffles functions like 'sum' and 'count'.
>
> That said, I have been very please with how far, rich and robust dBase Plus is as compared to what I was used to. Since your code is primarily process based, you could likely convert it and begin to develop Plus front end extensions as you become mor
e proficient. Similarly, there are many ways that you may wish to further upgrade you existing code to make it faster ... like replacing the 'Use' and xBase type file access with SQL based queries. My application showed about a 10x performance boost in
certain instances.
>
> As for Vista, perhaps Ken has some insights on the DBI status with this O/S.

I can't speak from personal experience as I don't have Vista. However, I
know some of the beta testers have been working with it, and I don't
recall any major problems ...

Ken

--
/(Opinions expressed are purely my own, not those of dataBased
Intelligence, Inc.)/

*Ken Mayer* [dBVIPS]
/Golden Stag Productions/
dBASE at goldenstag dot net
http://www.goldenstag.net/dbase/dBASEBook.htm
http://www.goldenstag.net/GSP
http://www.goldenstag.net/dbase

Sponsored Links