[comp.databases] CLIPPER 5.0

tenbarge@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Kris Tenbarge) (09/27/89)

Hello,
	I've been away from industry reports for a while and wondered what the
status of Clipper 5.0 is currently.  Is it shipping?  Anyone have it?  Is it as
fine a product as the Summer '87 issue?  Lastly, (and I hope not) are there any
bug reports already?

					Kris Tenbarge
					tenbarge@silver.bacs.indiana.edu 

brian.loesgen@canremote.uucp (BRIAN LOESGEN) (09/30/89)

ti>        I've been away from industry reports for a while and wondered
ti>what the status of Clipper 5.0 is currently.  Is it shipping?  Anyone
ti>have it?  Is it as fine a product as the Summer '87 issue?  Lastly,
ti>(and I hope not) are there any bug reports already?

It isn't shipping yet, although Nantucket is "close" to shipping. They
aren't accepting upgrade orders yet. Last I heard, it may be out in
November.

They are currently doing a North American continental tour
promoting/demoing it. They will be at South Bend (Indiana) Oct 4th.
Contact Randy Schmidt at 219-272-2543. This info as per the current
Nantucket News (V4N2).

Hope this msg makes it to you in time.

Brian L.

  
---
 ~ DeLuxe 1.11a10 #112    Clippering(In_Toronto,Canada)

b39y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (10/09/90)

I've just installed Clipper 5.0 - however, I tried to use their install program
and encountered the same problems as everyone else.  Afterwards, I installed it
by hand, and it works fine now.  I have not tried to convert ANY old
applications, but have simply been redesigning my support functions to learn
the new language.  My advice would be:  Don't, throw the program out simply due
to a horrible INSTALL program, and don't buy the program if all you want to do
is maintain S'87 code.  I'm keeping S'87 but will be doing all new design in
Clipper 5.0 - the program has (in my opinion) amazing potential, but you must
remember that Nantucket is trying to market 5.0 as an upgrade, while developers
HAVE to look at it as a new language.  I'm sure that a port of old applications
could be made to work, but, at least with my code, the S'87 works fine as it
is, and I'm not willing to spend the time to rewrite it all to make minor
modifications which could be made in S'87 just as easily.  Besides, all that
code is (sort of :-) optimized for S'87 anyway...

Good luck - feel free to ask questions here or via Email

Dave Rodger	B39Y@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Cornell University

eichi@forty2.UUCP (Stefan Eichenberger) (10/12/90)

In article <1990Oct9.095923.321@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> b39y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
> I'm keeping S'87 but will be doing all new design in
>Clipper 5.0 - the program has (in my opinion) amazing potential, but you must
>remember that Nantucket is trying to market 5.0 as an upgrade, while developers
>HAVE to look at it as a new language.  I'm sure that a port of old applications
>could be made to work, but, at least with my code, the S'87 works fine as it
>is, and I'm not willing to spend the time to rewrite it all to make minor
>modifications which could be made in S'87 just as easily.  Besides, all that
>code is (sort of :-) optimized for S'87 anyway...
>
>Good luck - feel free to ask questions here or via Email
>
>Dave Rodger	B39Y@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
>Cornell University

May be I missed the discussion on it, but could someone comment on the 
difficulties to port S'87 programs to V. 5.0? My problem is as follows:
   - I've some 12000 lines of S'87 code, which I originally wrote for
     dBase II (yes, that's right!) and ported all the way to S'87. In the
     meantime I changed jobs and have no time anymore to invest great
     amount of time for yet another port.
   - Every now and then, a little new feature has to be added, making the
     program size growing and growning.
   - The program has now a two level overlay structure and just loads under
     novell.
Now, the questions:
   - How much work would it be to make it up and running under 5.0 without
     using new features of the language?
   - 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.
   - Pack currently has insufficient memory - does anybody know, whether
     requirements changed?
   - do I gain in load size with the new automatic overlay structure?
   - 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.

Thanks a lot for your comments

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
UUCP:      ...mcvax!cernvax!forty2!eichi         Stefan Eichenberger
BITNET:    K807817@CZHRZU1A                      University of Zurich
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) (10/14/90)

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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bobgo@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Bob Goedkoop) (04/19/91)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a problem with Clipper 5.0, there hasn't been anyone able to help me so  far.
My problem is the following:
	I made a record with DBU, one of the fields in the record is a character        field of 180 characters. This field has to be chopped in 3 lines of 60   	characters but they have to keep working as if they were one line.
	Memofields can't be used and i don't want to use 3 separated fields of  	60 characters each.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can somebody help me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) (04/22/91)

In article <2907@maestro.htsa.aha.nl> bobgo@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Bob Goedkoop) writes:

>I have a problem with Clipper 5.0, there hasn't been anyone able to help me so  far.

>	I made a record with DBU, one of the fields in the record is a character        field of 180 characters. This field has to be chopped in 3 lines of 60   	characters but they have to keep working as if they were one line.

>	Memofields can't be used and i don't want to use 3 separated fields of  	60 characters each.
>
Bob,

I can't quite figure out what it is that you want to do... do you mean that
you need it "chopped" for display and editing on the screen ?  You might have
to consider memoedit() but remember that memoedit() can edit any string not justmemo fields.  One problem is that it auto allocates memory as a user types and
that may not be ideal.  You can always truncate the string when they return
control but it's still not perfect.

By the way, 5.01 has officially been released and the update is free to all
registered users of 5.0.  All the known bugs have been fixed, the debugger has
been improved, additional features added to TBROWSE and GET objects, VMM swaps
less frequently and it's a pleasure to use.

tom leylan
(ex-Senior Systems Analyst / Nantucket Corporation)

tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) (04/22/91)

In article <1991Apr22.001722.189@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>
>By the way, 5.01 has officially been released and the update is free to all
>registered users of 5.0.  All the known bugs have been fixed, the debugger has
>been improved, additional features added to TBROWSE and GET objects, VMM swaps
>less frequently and it's a pleasure to use.
>
I've been asked to explain how current Clipper developers can get the 5.01
update disk... it's easy, sit patiently by the mailbox if you registered
your 5.0 product or received 5.0 as an upgrade from S'87 you will automatically
receive version 5.01.

The plan as I understand it is to blast all updates out of Nantucket within
a few days so then it's up to post office.  (Come to think of it I don't
actually know if they are being mailed or sent by an alternative carrier
but I believe it is the U.S. mail).

tom
k

bobgo@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Bob Goedkoop) (05/13/91)

I'm using Clipper 5.0 for quit a while now.
  When i'm working with databases clipper sometimes makes a file
  with a weird name (example: 1622a453 or 26450267).

Is there anybody out there  who can tell me how this happens and
how i can stop it from happening.

tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) (05/16/91)

In article <2939@maestro.htsa.aha.nl> bobgo@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Bob Goedkoop) writes:
>
>I'm using Clipper 5.0 for quit a while now.
>  When i'm working with databases clipper sometimes makes a file
>  with a weird name (example: 1622a453 or 26450267).
>
>Is there anybody out there  who can tell me how this happens and
>how i can stop it from happening.


They are temporary files created for use by the virtual memory system in
Clipper 5.0.  The odd names are a result of the DOS interrupt that creates
the names and guarantees that they are unique.

Ordinarily these files are removed when the app exists, if they are not being
removed then the app probably can't find them.  There is a DOS environment
variable (I think it's SET TMP=) that will provide a path that Clipper will
use and the problem will be eliminated.

If you haven't yet received 5.01 be assured that it's on its way and life
(programming life anyway) will get considerably better.

tom