Visual FoxPro in 2018

0
votes

In our company some database administrators are still querying MS SQL Server DB with Visual Foxpro.

Eventhough I'm not a DB administrator, I reckon it's time to migrate those queries to a more recent DB management system.

Question 1: What are good substitutions/alternatives for Visual Foxpro? Would Python be able to carry out all the task Visual Foxpro can?

Question 2: The administators still defend the use of this language, eventhough support stopped in 2007. Is it still justifiable to keep using Visual Foxpro in 2018?

Thank you for your help!

4
pythondatabasefoxpro
Probably. Can you be more specific about what they're doing with FoxPro, i.e. just querying the database in a way you could with SQL Server Management Studio, say, or then transforming and visualising the data in way which would require some programming? However this is possibly a too-opinionated question for StackOverflow. Justifiable to keep using - that's up to them I'd guess? If it still works for them and there's no maintenance issues why do you want them to move? - Rup
In my opinion, to not force new (younger) employees to learn Visual Foxpro, but rather use recent technologies which might also be usefull skills for other applications. - user23002

4 Answers

6
votes

In our company some database administrators are still querying SQL Server database with Visual Foxpro.

You need to find out if they are just manually querying the SQL Server data for reports or are they actually using a VFP Application (which itself queries the SQL Server data).

If they are running a VFP Application, then to change, you (or they) will have to totally redesign and redevelop the application in the replacement language - depending on the complexity of the application - most often not an insignificant task.

If you are considering changing to another language rather than just following someone's advice or their 'gut' feeling such as

I reckon it's time to migrate those queries to a more recent database management system

You need to do a business analysis. At the very least you should ask the following questions.

  1. Is the current operation Business Critical to the operations?
  2. What is the REAL reason for changing?
  3. What advantages will be gained by changing?
  4. What will the timeline and budget look like to make the change?
  5. Is this software to be run in-house only or will it be run across the web?

In regards to Question 2

Sure VFP is a 'dated language', and its support from Microsoft is no longer available, but there is a VERY Active community of VFP developers who are available in various web forums who can offer far superior support to VFP questions than MS ever did.

Those VFP developers are still using the language and plan to continue to do so for quite a while. So 'language support', by itself, seems like a moot issue.

In regards to question 1

There are a number of languages to change to. Some are rather simplistic and others are more full-featured.

Again, if this is a VFP Application which is to be changed rather than just a few queries, then plan for an extensive effort no matter what language you change to.

Also your answers to the Business Analysis questions may guide you towards one language over another.

I do find it odd that you say

We also observe a lot of time going to problem solving rather than improving the services

I have developed FP/VFP applications for 30+ years now (currently in addition to Android and VB.ASP) and have found that once developed and implemented these are very stable applications. Sure there can be Network issues and data change issues which are problematic, but it is not the VFP software that is 'mis-behaving' - instead it is 'external' things which are causing the stable VFP application to no longer behave as expected.

Although I will say that a poorly designed application (VFP or other) will be frequently problematic.

Whichever way you go - good luck.

1
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I will say that, for our purposes VFP is the quickest way we have right now to convert data. That said, we run it a lot in server 2012 and it's really buggy. Requiring a lot of time clearing problems and restarting programs. It's days are numbered for us, I would continue to use it if we could get it updated a bit so it works on better on modern operating systems.

1
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This question was 2 years ago, but I would like to contribute something.

A2Q-1. MSSQL Server, MySQL, Postgre and other latest database applications are now more reliable and more secure. You should try them and then choose which is comfortable for you.

A2Q-2. It is still justifiable to use VFP. I know a large company who is still using it and are not having a hard time maintaining it. They've been using it for almost 30 years now. They are now the experts, they no longer need any support from the original creators of VFP.

0
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Question 1: What are good substitutions/alternatives for Visual Foxpro? Would Python be able to carry out all the task Visual Foxpro can?

I think you might want to look into Visual C# or Visual Basic using the .NET framework.
Python might be able to replace Visual FoxPro from what I hear.

Question 2: The administators still defend the use of this language, eventhough support stopped in 2007. Is it still justifiable to keep using Visual Foxpro in 2018?

It might be justifiable but you might want to use the latest .NET frameworks to keep up with security patches or new features.