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This is a history of dBase, not FoxPro. Wayne Ratliff, in the late 70s, built a revolutionary piece of tech: a high-level memory-managed language that regular
by jasim 4y ago
This is a history of dBase, not FoxPro.
Wayne Ratliff, in the late 70s, built a revolutionary piece of tech: a high-level memory-managed language that regular people could use (from early 80s!) to build database-backed user interfaces. That was dBase.
It is the greatest NoCode tool of all times.
The best release of dBase was dBase III Plus. Everything that came after was a trash-fire. dBase was interpreted - you needed the source .PRG to run it. So a couple of folks formed Nantucket and built Clipper Summer 87. It was primarily marketed as a compiler for dBase. But later
versions of Clipper became their own language, and remains my most favorite programming language.
In parallel, there was FoxBase, originally a cheaper and then faster version of dBase, which was then turned to FoxPro with its separate command window and output window (thanks to a port to the original Mac GUI which necessitated it). Excellent product, extremely wide adoption for building business applications until FoxPro 2.6 for DOS.
For a detailed history of FoxPro, read FoxTales by Kerry Nietz. Anyone who's used dBase/Clipper/FoxPro would find it deeply enjoyable!
- As_You_Wish 4y agoFoxpro was my jam. never liked anything but Foxpro, before or since.
- bananaboy 4y agoFoxTales was a really great read! I loved it and I only ever tinkered with dBase and never used Clipper or FoxPro.
- jim_lawless 4y agoI was confused by this too. The blog is called The History of FoxPro. The Ratliff interview is just one post of a number in the pre-history of FoxPro detailing the rise of dBase. Many of the others pertain to FoxPro. http://www.foxprohistory.org/tableofcontents.htm http://www.foxprohistory.org/tableofcontents.htm I agree with you about the FoxTales book. It was a great read.
- tandr 4y agoThank you kindly for the trip down memory lane, that's how I remember it all too! That's what I started from - dBase III, Clipper, and then FoxPro, and always thought it was some sort on niche products. Nowadays I don't even mention these names on my resume...
- pjmlp 4y agoSimilar path on the database programming front. After Turbo Pascal 5.5, Clipper 5 became my second OOP language actually, a couple of months before I finally got hold of Turbo C++ 1.0. Also learned DBase III Plus, followed by Summer '87 before Clipper 5. It was great, I got some money during high school doing Clipper based CRUD applications, super easy. I still remember how hard it was to get my head around SQL and even Access, given what I thought a DB should look like.
- chasil 4y agoThere was a CP/M port of dBASE, but not of FoxPro. The dBASE language was upwardly compatible with the larger FoxPro command set. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase