Visual FoxPro CTP just released...that's right Visual FoxPro still exists!

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Yes, Microsoft still is producing and improving on one of our most historically popular developer platforms: Visual FoxPro.  Many of you, like me, started out as xBase programmers (dBase, FoxBase, Clipper...gosh I can't remember them all.)  Anyway, for those of you who are either maintaining or building Apps in Visual FoxPro, we are still working for ya. 

Here's the Overview of what's in this CTP.

 

Overview

"This download contains latest binaries that are part of Microsoft Visual FoxPro Sedna CTP and the Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2 CTP. This CTP contains contains two downloads:

The Sedna CTP download contains five components: VistaDialogs4COM, Upsizing Wizard, Data Explorer, NET4COM and MY library for VFP.

The VFP 9.0 SP2 CTP download contains a patch that can be applied to VFP 9.0 or VFP 9.0 SP1. In addition to fixes to the core product, this patch contains significant enhancements to the Reporting features.

Note that the VFP 9.0 SP2 CTP patch can only be applied over VFP 9.0 or VFP9.0 SP1."

 

Here's the link to the CTP: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cc84f749-a153-4929-8277-deb9a2f8b0a5&DisplayLang=en

Here's the link to the MSDN Product Page: https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vfoxpro/default.aspx

Ok, so let me answer the question that everyone is thinking?  Is Visual FoxPro a .NET language yet?  No.  Here's the official statement from the product site:

"As indicated in prior public statements, Microsoft does not plan to merge Visual FoxPro into Visual Studio .NET, nor are there plans to create a new Visual FoxPro .NET programming language. Visual FoxPro will remain stand-alone Win32 based, and will run on 64-bit Windows in 32-bit compatibility mode. For deploying Visual FoxPro solutions that use components based on Microsoft .NET, Sedna will provide improvements for those components using COM and .NET interoperability... To help developers who currently use or plan to program on the .NET platform, members of the Visual FoxPro team are also working on data programming for the Microsoft .NET platform."

So, I listed the easy ones:

  • dBase 1-5 (or more accurately dBase I-V)
  • Clipper
  • FoxBase
  • Microsoft Access
  • SuperBase (I think it was xBase)

 

What are the other xBase tools/language that I am missing? 

~ Robert Shelton