Access Compared To Foxpro

[Bert666]

Hi there people,

I have recently joined a company that is using Foxpro 2.6 to store their info. I have suggested to them to switch over to access 2000, but they are convinced that there isn't much more to access than there is in Foxpro - i know that Access is better in many aspects but don't quite have the technical details. could anyone put in some lines.

Many thanks,

Bert.

 

[dcx693]

Hey everyone, I thought I'd reprise this thread since I've been given the task of potentially migrating a FoxPro 6 application over to Access XP.

One of the big considerations is speed. I believe that Microsoft integrated Rushmore technology into Access when they put out version 97. Anybody have any thoughts on the relative speeds of Access and FoxPro when using a locally stored (i.e., Jet for Access) database?

What does FoxPro use for it's backend?

Thanks.

 

[pono1]

dcx,

No clue. But they're probably more alike than unalike. Given that, I'd take a look at my developer -- does he or she know Foxpro or Access? And I'd play to that strength.

Regards,
Tim

 

[dcx693]

Thanks Tim. We've got some casual FoxPro users/developers and we're thinking of moving the project to Access. It's a very simple app. The conversion wouldn't be painstaking, but I just wanted to get an idea of whether we'd take a speed hit by moving it to Access. They touted the FoxPro speed as a big plus. Guess we'll have to run some benchmarks.

 

[cable]

just a curiosity question...but what is FoxPro? I know its a ms app, and from what I've seen it seems to be access but more 'developery' What would you use it for?

 

[dcx693]

The official name is Microsoft Visual FoxPro, and the current version is 7, though the public beta of 8 is out.

The program had it's roots in FoxPro, a dBase clone written back in the 80's when dBase was all the rage. Microsoft bought FoxPro, added a GUI environment to it, and made it "Visual" to go along with it's other "Visual" programming products. From what I've seen, it's not as good a RAD environment as Access. Microsoft took the Rushmore technology from FoxPro and integrated it into Access starting with version 2.0.

Microsoft mentions on their web site that FoxPro, as opposed to Access, is for "professionals" who make their living designing databases. Sounds like marketing crap to me, since plenty of people make their living off Access. How many FoxPro developers are there out there?

 

[pono1]

Sounds like marketing crap to me, since plenty of people make their living off Access. How many FoxPro developers are there out there?

DCX,

"Marketing crap" is redundant. I'm slightly surprised MS hasn't, over time, merged and morphed Foxpro into Access. Let us know what you discover.

Regards,
Tim