John Swenson
MSDN Online
Let's face it, FoxPro hasn't always received the attention it deserves around Microsoft. There was a time when the database management system didn't appear in many Microsoft ads, rumors circulated that Microsoft was about to abandon the product, and FoxPro fans even felt compelled to lobby the company to upgrade its own product.
I have to admit, I helped stir up some of this anxiety. In my former career as an InformationWeek reporter, I cowrote a story in the magazine a couple of years ago that said Microsoft was planning to let FoxPro die a quiet death.
I'm here to tell you now that this is old news. Microsoft is preparing an upgrade (code-named Tahoe) to Visual FoxPro 5.0 due out next year with the next version of the Microsoft Visual Studio tools suite. The company issued a strategy background paper this week (November 12, 1997) on the Visual FoxPro Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/)that lays out the future of Visual FoxPro for the 500,000 developers (by Microsoft's estimate) who use the FoxPro system of developing powerful database applications. In just eight pages, this Visual FoxPro manifesto spells out Microsoft's plans for future versions of the product, describes its role in Microsoft's overall tools strategy, and explains why Microsoft plans to continue upgrading and improving Visual FoxPro.
The new background paper tells FoxPro developers how they can use Visual FoxPro 5.0 to create "modern, scaleable, multitier business applications that can be delivered over any network." In other words, it explains how Visual FoxPro can create applications as sophisticated as anything built with Microsoft's other tools. "What this really boils down to," says Visual FoxPro product manager Robert Green, "is that Windows DNA is not just for Visual Basic and Visual C++ guys. It's also for FoxPro developers."
Windows DNA, or Windows Distributed interNet Architecture (see the related article, Windows DNA: Not Just Another Pretty Marketing Term) is the centerpiece of Microsoft's plan for developing distributed applications. Developers who follow the Windows DNA architecture have a road map for building distributed applications that integrate the new model of Web computing with the traditional client-server model. The architecture defines how dozens of different Microsoft products and technologies fit together to create multitier, distributed Windows DNA applications.
Visual FoxPro 5.0 is one of several tools that let developers create such applications. It fully supports Windows DNA and therefore can create any tier of a Windows DNA application. Developers can use Visual FoxPro to write middle-tier components, store data in another tier, and supply user-interface elements such as forms in a third tier.
The Tahoe version of Visual FoxPro will add even more support for building multitier client-server and Web-based applications. It will do this by adding features such as support for Microsoft Transaction Server and the ability to create forms that can run in a Web browser.
So why is Microsoft publishing its Visual FoxPro strategy paper today, a year after it released Visual FoxPro 5.0? Mainly because Microsoft recently announced its Windows DNA architecture and the company wants developers to know how Visual FoxPro fits into that framework. Also, "We still get questions about the future of the product and about our commitment to it," Green says. "We have an answer that works and we want to do a better job of telling everyone."
There was a time when some Microsoft managers didn't want the company throwing much support behind FoxPro. Today, Microsoft rejects any notion that FoxPro developers should switch to Visual Basic or another Microsoft tool, Green insists. Top management agrees that "The thing that's most important is to let Visual FoxPro developers use their existing investments and not throw everything away. Code doesn't die." There's no need for developers to replace Visual FoxPro with another language when Visual FoxPro can get the job done, he says.
Many longtime FoxPro developers will start building more sophisticated applications when they try Visual FoxPro 5.0 and next year's Tahoe upgrade, Green predicts. That's because Visual FoxPro now supports modern object-oriented programming and component development. "The idea of building component-based applications is a new idea to a lot of developers, but especially to the FoxPro guys," he says. "Once they see the benefits of deploying information in these new ways, I think they'll be very interested."
Microsoft won't push FoxPro developers to switch tools, but it will try and persuade them to buy its tools suite. Most of today's developers need more than one tool, and FoxPro developers are no exception. For example, FoxPro developers who want to do some Web development might want to add Visual InterDev to their toolbox. Since buying Visual InterDev and Visual FoxPro separately costs about the same as the entire Visual Studio suite, Microsoft expects many Visual FoxPro users to buy the suite.
Microsoft will release the new version of Visual FoxPro at the same time as its other new visual tools next year. That means Visual FoxPro will gain equal billing in Visual Studio promotions, Green says. When Microsoft released Visual Studio 97 last spring, Visual FoxPro 5.0 received less promotion than the other tools because it was already six months old.
Microsoft hasn't announced a release date for the next version of Visual Studio or Visual FoxPro. However, it is expected in the first half of next year—and the next Visual FoxPro DevCon is scheduled for May, 1998, in Orlando, Florida, so draw your own conclusions and start making plans to attend.
In the meantime, rest assured that Visual FoxPro is here to stay, and that it is on par with Microsoft's other visual tools. If you see any reporters writing stories that suggest otherwise, tell them they're wrong.