englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Louis Englander) (04/12/90)
In the course of developing an application in FoxBase+/Mac, I've found
FoxCode to be really useful, once i had some idea of how it worked.
I started with the skeleton template "Advanced Application, modifying it
as i went along. (For those who don't know, FoxCode is a code
generation language used build FoxBASE code and screen tables into
applications).
A lot of people probably get along fine without FoxCode, but it seems
to me that the advantages are significant. The main problem is that Fox
doesn't seem to support it very well (their staff doesn't really know
how to use it), and documentation is minimal. George Goley, in his new
book, says (basically) that FoxCode sucks and is not worth the trouble.
Am i making a mistake by getting too involved with FoxCode, without
_really_ knowing what i'm doing? Are there other developers out there
that use it? I'd like to see a discussion here about FoxCode, and also
find out how much expertise there is out there in netland.
--
- Scotttomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) (04/14/90)
For those that may not know, FoxCode is essientially a bundled version of (pioneer Ashton-Tate employee) Luis Castro's product "ViewGen." He is currently working on a new and improved version tentatively named "Stage," and can be reached at the following address: Software Tools Development Corporation, P.O. Box 7247 Northridge, CA 91327 Voice: (818) 885-0318 Although I am partial to dBASE IV's built-in Application Generator, "ViewGen" and "Stage" are each sophisticated and very reasonably priced products. (As usual, the above opinions are mine and mine alone.)
timk@xenitec.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) (04/14/90)
In article <15277@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Louis Englander) writes: >In the course of developing an application in FoxBase+/Mac, I've found >to me that the advantages are significant. The main problem is that Fox >doesn't seem to support it very well (their staff doesn't really know >how to use it), and documentation is minimal. The foxcode/gen/view stuff helps, and with a bit of effort I was able to decode the documentation to figure out what I needed to do. I've managed to write a system that will generate the complete "skeleton" for an application I'm working on, and I just have to fill in the program- specific stuff. The system I've written makes the tedious stuff easier since I don't have to hand code it all. >George Goley, in his new >book, says (basically) that FoxCode sucks and is not worth the trouble. What's the name of the book? I've never run across this author. IMHO - Foxcode/gen/view don't empirically "suck", it's got the potential to be something significantly useful - IF they had made the screen painter (foxview) more powerful and user-friendly. (I wouldn't exactly call it 'user-hostile', more like 'user-indifferent.') When Foxpro came out and there weren't any changes / improvements to the view/gen/code program set I could see, that's when I resolved to write my own painter/etc. to do the job. (Coming to a store near you!-) From where I'm looking at things, if these products were *properly* implimented and written, a reasonably good set of .gen files sent out with them, and a user-friendly screen interface implimented, this product could save untold hours of drudgery and keyboarding. But to get there's going to required a bit of work. >Am i making a mistake by getting too involved with FoxCode, without >_really_ knowing what i'm doing? If you haven't done a fair bit of coding in dbase or foxbase or clipper, enough to be able to recognize the patterns in the programs that pop-up in almost any application, then it'd probably be a mistake to try and do anything more than develop a good screen (or .fmt file) painter/generator. If you've done a good bit of programming, it'd be worth your while to give it a shot. Are there other developers out there >that use it? I'd like to see a discussion here about FoxCode, and also >find out how much expertise there is out there in netland. I use it - but I chafe at it's limitations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Timothy D. Kuehn TDK Consulting Services 871 Victoria St. North, Kitchener, voice: (519)-741-3623 Ontario, Canada N2B 3S4 DOS/Xenix - SW/HW. uC uP RDBMS !watmath!maytag!xenitec!timk timk@xenitec.on.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------