peter@aucs.UUCP (06/03/87)
We want to buy a dBase III Plus compiler and the only one we are
familiar with is Clipper. Does anyone out there know of any other
such compilers. Strong compatibility with dBase III Plus is a
requirement. Give as much info as you can (price, where to
order from, phone number, etc). Reply to me if you can. Thanx.
Peter W. Steele UUCP : {seismo|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter
Acadia University BITNET : {Peter|pws}@Acadia
Wolfville, N.S. Internet : {Peter|pws}%Acadia.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Canada B0P 1X0 PHONEnet : (902) 542-2201x121peter@aucs.UUCP (06/09/87)
I've decided to summarize briefly for the net since received quite a
few requests to pass on the info (I tried to mail some to individuals
but I was told they didn't exist :-) ).
In short, there seems to be three to pick from: Clipper, Quicksilver,
and FoxBase+, and actually only the first two are true compilers. The
best source of information on all three of these is the comparison in
the April 1987 issue of PC Tech Journal--very detailed and informative.
Starting with the last, FoxBase+ is not a compiler but a complete dBase III
(no Plus) clone, less a few features, plus some new ones. It does not
interpret source code directly, but rather "compiles" it first to "fox"-code
and then interprets that. It only does this compilation if the source code
has been modified; consequently, execution is quite fast, faster apparently
in benchmarks than compiled dBase! If you already have dBase III+ and want
a compiler, don't get FoxBase+--its not a compiler. If you want to get
dBase or something like it, you might consider FoxBase+ as a possibility.
Quicksilver is a true compiler, but all in all, I wasn't very impressed
with it, although it apparently produced better code than Clipper. To me,
the system just seemed to large and "clunky", and not well designed. For
example, it compiles source code files such as FRED.PRG and creates a
compiled object code file in @FRED.PRG. Why this and not something
like FRED.OBJ (or whatever) I don't know, but I can't see a justification
for it.
Clipper is also a true compiler. Although it doesn't produce the best
code, we have decided to order this compiler. Our main reason for wanting
a compiler was so that we could create stand-alone applications, not
improve the speed of execution (although having both is fine). The biggest
headache I can see with Clipper is that it does not support dBase NDX files,
but rather its own NTX files (more efficient they claim), although Nantucket
Corporation claims the "next release" will support both NDX and NTX style
index files (user selectable).
Both of the compilers lack support for certain "interactive" commands, and
both add additional features, such as arrays (Q and C), user-defined
arrays (C only), and others.
Price-wise, they're all pretty close. We checked out several local
dealers and picked the cheapest...
Peter W. Steele UUCP : {seismo|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter
Acadia University BITNET : {Peter|pws}@Acadia
Wolfville, N.S. Internet : {Peter|pws}%Acadia.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Canada B0P 1X0 PHONEnet : (902) 542-2201x121