Customer Reviews

Effective Techniques for Application Development with Visual FoxPro 6.0

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Jim and Steve bring their real-world practical experiences to the task of developing applications in Visual FoxPro. While they cover the basic concepts, the focus is on practical code examples and real problems. No single-table solutions or "let's make the circle red" examples are here to waste your time. Steve's brilliant Relational Integrity code is worth twice the price of the book alone!

The authors have poured forth a wealth of information into this book that covers all facets of application development. The content is well organized and presented in a easy-to-absorb manner that makes the reader feel as if they have their own personal mentor guiding them on the path to productive VFP development.

This book is definitely a must-have reference for a wide range of skill and experience levels. Neophyte level programmers will find this to be an excellent roadmap to making the most of the rich feature set found in the VFP environment. Intermediate level VFP programmers who still sweat over every line code they write will find everything they need to know to determine the best implementation methods for their projects. This book would also be the perfect companion for experienced developers that are new to VFP and asking the inevitable question of "How Do I Get Started?" Meanwhile, the well-seasoned fox developers will find this an informative reference for gracefully waltzing their way through the quirks and nuances of VFP without ever missing a step. Even the more advanced VFP developer will likewise find plenty of useful advice for comparing and improving their own application development techniques.

Booth and Sawyer didn't just write a book, they created a comprehensive catalog of their combined experience and wisdom that I just couldn't put down once I started reading it. Anybody familiar with VFP knows that it is not a general-purpose development tool, but rather a high-end component of Visual Studio suitable for developing all types of data-centric applications. Such a specialized tool requires a special reference to unleash its many capabilities - this is that reference! The insight contained in this book will allow you to capitalize on your investment in Visual FoxPro by giving the developer who reads it the knowledge normally only earned with a great deal of experience.

I have developed applications using Foxpro v2.x for 4 years and shifted to VFP6 quite recently. I opted to go for this book as from the reviews I read, it should get a semi-newbi like me, up and running. On browsing the book, I found out that it wastes too much time on tables and relationships (data structures), and with around 350 pages, not much more space remains.

While I do understand that data manipulation and application design are very important, one finds extensive discussions on these topics in software engineering books or gained through experience.

Somehow, I was left a bit disappointed and have to go for another manual with more "how-to-do-it" instructions.

If you want the "wisdom" and information about developing in Visual FoxPro, you could not pick a better book. It turned on the light bulb, giving me direction in better problem solving structure and analysis. If you plan to use this book as a reference, "think again", it will NOT 'lie flat'. Within 2 weeks of using this book it started to fall apart, pages fell out as I turned the page, and I was not trying to make it lay flat. Hentzenwerke Publishing told me in an email that the book would not 'lie flat'. What do they think we buy these books for, "to look pretty on a shelf"? I may have just got the one badly bound book but I think not when Hentzenwerke admitted to a few complaints. This is too bad because the book has GREAT content and help me understand and use more acceptable approach to programming standards.

This book really helped me get off the ground, but once I reached a certain level of proficiency, it quickly became irrelevant. Many important topics are not discussed, or only discussed if you are using VFP at a very basic level. In fact, I find most of their techniques irrelevant, though their philosophies about development are helpful. I don't recommend this book to anyone with serious VFP development experience.

This book is a wonderful resource for actual, practical information that will come in handy when your application in is development. I suggest you read it once through to get an idea of what's inside, and then refer back to it often as you make your way through your development process.