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The Ages of Fox (by John Koziol)

  • Article

Some time back, I mentioned the word "paleovulpic" as pertaining to pre-Visual FoxPro. Well, I was thinking about it today and I realized that the Fox programming eras needed to be more succinctly defined. So here goes:

Protovulpic Era

Desktop database program is ruled by a melange of software.  Fox developers are using dBase, Quicksilver, and Clipper because there is no Fox...yet. This era is dominated by strange creatures such as Jeb Long and media such as the Databased Advisor.

Archaeovolpic Era

The FoxBase era. From 1.0 to multi-user FoxBase Plus, 1985 through 1989. Fox attracts a true following and grows in the Xbase world. Something called a "George Goley" arrives on the scene. Popularity grows, pressuring other 4GLs such as dbXL and Quicksilver.  Clipper and dBase IV hold firm as strong rivals; however, the awesome spped and power of Fox starts to siphon off other database developers.

First Interlingium Era

FoxPro 1.0 is introduced in 1989 and no one knows what the hell to do with it.  Since FoxPro 1.0 was never widely adopted, but, adaptation of Fox-based solutions grew, this period is named such: Translation = First Between Languages Era.  This lasts until 1991.

Paleovulpic Era

This era starts with the introduction of FoxPro 2.0 in 1991 and lasts through FoxPro 2.6 for DOS in 1993. Mass immigration to the new Fox standard. Finally, Fox establishes it's own identity showcasing that blazing data speed it's famous for. Lisa Slater, Jim Booth, and others are seen widely.

Second Interlingium Era

FoxPro 2.5 and 2.6 introduced Windows versions. A short year or so later, Visual FoxPro 3.0 was released. A great schism appeared - those that refused to abandon the 2.x platform and those that wanted to adopt 3.0 but couldn't undertand it. There were a few who figured it all out and embraced Visual FoxPro, but their numbers were so few that I believe that the "interlingium" label applies.

Eschatonic Era

Visual FoxPro 5.0  to present. This era is named such as with every version, people are waiting for the announcement that there will be no future versions.

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Comments?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2005
    A reference to Tom Rettig in the early periods would be not only nice but defining as well. One of the true XBASE gurus and certainly one of the most generous and kind personalities ever.
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2005
    I propose that the eras be sub-classified into Eons. The IDXic Eon covers the early eras when developers had to explicitly SET INDEX TO particular IDX files, which covers all the eras up to (and including?) the Paleovulpic Era. The CDXic Eon is the time span when index files were opened implicitly by the USE command, ranging (I believe) from the Second Interlingium Era to the present day. (Can I wiki all this once it gets hashed out?)





    followed by the CDXcene period, where the compound CDX was opened automatically as part of the USE statement.
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2005
    Is VFP 9.0 the last version? Well, every version up until now at the Devcon where the version was released, there was an early demo of the "next" version.

    But, I recall no early demos of VFP 10 when 9 was released... only talk of addins or tools to make interop with .Net easier.

    I like your "era" division, but have no idea what the words mean? Are they made up?

    BOb
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2005
    Yes, Jeb was (and still is) a strange creature. In the early days aat Ashton Tate, his core dev team refered to him as "Cromagnum Man".
  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2007
    PingBack from http://foxpro.ntsl119.com/scr/archives/480