Customer Reviews

1001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I note that one reviewer didn't like it because it spent too much time on showing the reader how to do things. Andy and Marcia (now husband and wife, by the way) have long been towers of strength in the CompuServe support Forums. This book shows their understanding, not only of VFP, but of us poor geeks out in the real world trying to figure out how to make it work.

Structured code, good programming habits, and incorporation of OOP is here with us now, here to stay. Andy and Marcia guide the user into the methods of using these resources with example after example. I've met some people who can sit down and read a book like this from cover to cover before touching the keyboard. They are theoretical learners, and more power to them. I'm the other kind of guy. I need to get my mitts on the keyboard as soon as possible and try things out.

This book is exactly what I need. At this moment it sits on my shelf with no less than 8 bookmarks in it. Andy and Marcia's influence may be seen through all my code.

Ultimately, this 67 year old geek must thank Andy and Marcia for the fact that, at an age when most old guys are retired, I am still gainfully employed, and generously paid.

This is the best kind of bargain!

This book is not a comprehensive reference book for VFP. This book is not an instructional book for someone new to VFP. This book does not focus on any single aspect of VFP.

This book IS a smorgasbord of useful tips and information that helped me out immediately. Not all of the tips were new to me, but unless you're already a very accomplished VFP programmer, you're sure to find some real gems here, many of which are not addressed in other VFP books. The example code is very specific and detailed, particularly if you download the sample files. This book is a special niche kind of a book that is hard to categorize, but for my purposes it's been fantastic.

Great format! I got immediate return on my investment because I did not have to read it from cover to cover. Since most of the sections answer a "How Do I....?" question, I could immediately find the answers I needed. I can't wait until the authors do a follow-up and expand it to include more than just native VFP tips.

If you've been using VFP for a while you absolutely need to get this book. I've read a lot of developer computer books over the years & I'm finding myself enjoying this book the most. The book is laid out in a 'How To' format & it covers exactly the types of questions/problems developers face in everday situations along with plenty of actual coding samples.

It's a must have!!

A handy resource for those thousand-and-one things you're pretty sure you knew how to do once. Excellent, practical code samples for manipulating reports, forms, classes, the dreaded grid, and dozens of other topics. I enjoy opening the book at random and discovering (or rediscovering) clever ways to work with FoxPro.

I baught all visual foxpro books available. "1001 things you wanted to know about visual foxpro" It Include more tips and tricks than all other books put together. Even there is some features that change the length of code dramtically, say 1 hour instead 1 week of work.

Marcia and Andy have put together a great book full of hot tips for VFP developers. Some books are theoretical and others are practical, this one is practical from the start. It is full of great suggestions for handling common problems encountered in VFP. This is a book that will never find itself far from your workstation.

I was real excited about buying this book, but every time I go to look something up, I find it virtually useless. It spends too much time explaining their way of doing things, rather than the things I actually want to know. And there is a surprising amount of missing information. As an example, go to the index and look up MENU. It ain't there. It seems to me that somewhere in the 1001 things I'd want to know, a thing as big as menus would be there.

I don't like giving a negative review, because I've read articles by many of these guys and they are very knowledgable, helpful people. But this book falls way short of what I expected from them.

And I think it was put together in way too much of a hurry, as is evident in the number of typos, and the fact that the index is labeled "Microsoft Office Automation with Visual FoxPro." I actually spent 10 minutes trying to find the regular index, figuring some of the omissions would be there, but no, that's the index, and it's typical of the problems with this book.

My suggestion - don't buy this, not even if you're a neophyte. I found it a poorly spent $50.

Let me first say that I'm a dBase programmer and a relative novice to Visual Foxpro. Even still, though I've loaded the software version of this book onto my computer and consulting it many times, I still haven't found a useful tip that justified the $40 I paid for it.

I'm getting much better help on-line from the Google search tips for VFP and the sample solutions that Microsoft supplies with the software.

Perhaps the problem is the book seems to have been designed for the highly knowledgeable user. My sense is most of the tips come from the authors' custom consulting jobs. Which is fine, but for those who are not VFP experts, it's not very useful.

Apparently a good introductory/intermediate book on Foxpro hasn't been written yet. Still looking.

If you're going to use VFP for more than casual GUI changes to your program, this book is a wealth of info. Concise, in-depth, and a lovely addition to your collection.