OT: If I were to list what I've done with filePro & vent how I feel about filePro

Mon Mar 26 21:56:43 PDT 2018

What both of you are overlooking is the vast infrastructure of Windows.  I
have never liked networks but this is the area most of my clients wanted to
have installed.

MS DOS, Windows, Windows server NT, and the Windows Server nnnn. 

Most of you *nix folks are running into Windows desktops rather than install
a GUI version of Linux.

IN answer to Mark's comment about filePro I/O, keep in mind this was written
overnight when Ken and a group of programmers were competing in a database
competition. The needed that functionality to compete.  I don't know if it
was ever improved after that week-end.

As for programmers beyond Ken, yes FP Tech does have others do development
work.  It would be fool-hardy to just have one person doing all of your
development.

I think Small Computer and other owners made a major error in not getting
some of their big users for finance the development of a GUI version.  The
was a company I had worked for whose software ran on IBM system 36 and AS400
computers as it was written in RPG.  The got 5 of their largest clients to
finance the development of SQL version of the software.  The only complaint
I heard from those companies was the length of time it took them.  The issue
was they were adding a load of bells and whistles rather than getting the
base application up and running.  They had all of this new functionality
that they could use and forgot about getting the basic application up and
running.  The new features would have been a great sales tool for selling
upgrades.

I would love to see a native GUI interface for filePro rather then that
screen scraper.  It would just look a lot better.  Although, Wegman's
register terminals are old school.  I think they are connected to the
corporate mainframe.

Richard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Filepro-list [mailto:filepro-list-
> bounces+rkreiss=verizon.net at lists.celestial.com] On Behalf Of Jose
Lerebours
> via Filepro-list
> Sent: Monday, March 26, 2018 9:38 PM
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subject: Re: OT: If I were to list what I've done with filePro & vent how
I feel
> about filePro
> 
> Mark,
> 
> You make, very elegantly I most say, my point ... in its current state, I
agree, it
> has no chance (lets see what next release packs within ...) but I truly
believe that
> if they had focused on one OS and at its infancy (the OS') they could have
> captured a sizable market worldwide.
> 
> I am not suggesting they do this now but rather that they should had done
it
> years ago when RedHat was taking free OS and making $$$ because, lots of
> businesses and enthusiastic techies were willing (and still are) to pay
for stable
> apps and a "go to" team.
> 
> All that said, some in this list have predicted the "death" of filePro and
sucker
> keeps punching his way to the next round (or year).
> 
> 
> 
> On 03/26/2018 09:22 PM, Fairlight via Filepro-list wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 08:24:11PM -0400, Jose Lerebours via
Filepro-list
> thus spoke:
> >> I really believe filePro should had embraced LINUX and made it its
> >> sole OS, drop the rest ... make filePro available and distributed
> >> with every copy of LINUX (if only a single user development/runtime)
> >> to lure new blood and enrich the community with new ideas, talent
> >> and market area.
> > They did (eventually...) embrace Linux.
> >
> > That said, what you suggest is absolutely the -worst- way to gain market
> > share.  That's actually one of the problems filePro had, was being bound
> > for a long time to dead or dying platforms after a certain period.  SCO,
> > AIX, etc., were bad things with which to be affiliated.  SCO
-definitely-
> > was frowned upon in Linux circles, to the point that I think they even
> > dropped the ABI compatibility at some point.  It was seeing no love
after a
> > while.  Pretty sure it's been abandoned.
> >
> > No matter the product, you don't want to bind yourself tightly to any
one
> > platform, unless that platform offers something no other platforms do.
> > There's no such creature when facing Linux.  You can do -roughly- the
same
> > things on pretty much any *nix platform.  It's down to hardware support
> > and ease of compilation, when it comes to *nix platforms.  Linux and
*BSD
> > have those in abundance.  Things like SCO, AIX, HP/UX, and Irix do not.
As
> > such, what Linux and *BSD are the best out there for open-source
software.
> >
> > However, filePro is -not- open-source, so none of the benefits make it a
> > sane move to sacrifice -any- market share in favour of either of them,
> > because the proposed target audience doesn't care.  Spread your
influence
> > far and wide is then the name of the game.
> >
> > As for free copies with Linux, that would prove horribly ineffective.
You
> > think -I'm- strict and critical?  I've dealt directly (over the course
> > of five years) with the former second-in-command of the Linux kernel,
> > the primary author of ext2, one of the main contributors to GIMP and its
> > modules, a few people from the early days of Mozilla, and Karl Asha of
> > Blackdown/Java for Linux fame.  I've also hung out in USENET groups for
> > popular languages (including the one for Perl, whose denizens I can't
> > stand, ditto the Perl Monks).  Most of them make me look like a
positively
> > chill person.  They're zealots, most of them.  We'll just glaze over the
> > fact that for-money commercial software is antithetical to most of the
> > Linux community's ideals.
> >
> > After many, many conversations, I know all too well how people in the
Linux
> > community think.  I cannot for the life of me see filePro meeting
anything
> > other than scorn at this late date.  Not in its current state, anyway.
> >
> > If you decouple the storage engine from the language, actually implement
> > select(), threading, an API, and the ability to natively bind to -any-
> > *SQL, implement malloc() engine-wide and dump all the 1970s-style
arbitrary
> > length limits, and improve a few other problem areas, -maybe- it would
have
> > value to a few people as a front-end to some of the SQL engines, from
> > purely a RAD standpoint.  It honestly would not be much more than a
souped
> > up 'dialog' to most of them.
> >
> > As it is, there's no audience for it.  People are writing for HTML5, and
> > GUI UIs in one form or another are now the norm.  Even dBase went GUI.
> > Have a look at www.dbase.com.
> >
> > As far as I can see, filePro is probably on life support until its
eventual
> > demise.  It stood still for far too long.  You'd need a decent sized
team
> > to mount a comeback, and even then the odds aren't good, as there are
> > already established names (like dBase and FileMaker Pro) in the field.
> >
> > Just not seein' it, man.  The landscape has changed too much, and fP
didn't
> > change with it.
> >
> > mark->
> 
> --
> Jose D. Lerebours
> 954-559-7186
> https://www.cargosaas.com
> http://www.ezbookeep.com
> http://www.ezdaemon.com
> http://www.fp2php.com
> 
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