March, 2013--Bill Fitzgerald on "A VFP programmer's approach to handling data in .NET.”

Our next meeting is next Tuesday, March 12 at 7 PM in Room 158, DeVry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA.

Member Bill Fitzgerald  is speaking this month. The topic is “A VFP programmer's approach to handling data in .NET.”

Abstract: About 6  years ago I started learning .NET and now more than 50% of my programming is done in .NET. I found some good books but most of them don't approach .NET from the point of view of a desktop database programmer and the few that do are seriously out of date.

Unlike VFP which has its own built in methods for handling data, .NET is data neutral, so countless ways of handling data have emerged and continue to emerge. It took about 4 years of trial and error before I settled on an approach to handling data within .NET desktop applications that resonated
somewhat with the way I did things with VFP. The approach is also applicable to web applications though my focus has been on the desktop.

In this session, I’ll use a small database to demonstrate my approach to handling data in .NET/SQL Server.

February 12--Tamar Granor on Thor

At our February 12 meeting, Tamar Granor will reprise her June presentation "Try Thor's Terrific Tools" with some updates based on changes to Thor.

January 8: Menachem Bazian--PHP in the Real World

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, January 8 at 7 PM. Feel free to come as early as 6:30 for dinner. This month, we’ll be providing dinner; please email tamar@tamargranor.com if you plan to join us, so we have enough food.

Menachem Bazian returns for another look at PHP with a session titled “PHP in the Real World”: This session will discuss programming PHP in the real world. The session will follow the evolution of a simple application from original problem description through implementation. Attendees will be introduced to CodeIgniter, a low weight, high performance PHP framework which I use as the basis for my PHP applications. There will be a few other goodies thrown in for good measure too!

December 11: Bob Pierce on synchronizing offline SqlServer/MySql data with live Fox data

Our next meeting is Tuesday, December 11.

This month, Bob Pierce will speak on synchronizing offline SqlServer/MySql data with live Fox data: I have a couple of projects that I need to have VFP tables interact with SQLServer/MySQL to be consumed by a program that is disconnected/remote. I plan to be converting the my main application over to SQLServer but am not yet ready to make that jump, so I am using some small scale projects to become familiar with some of the issues and allow me to solve a couple problems in the short run. I will explore a couple of techniques I have tried and give a sense of some challenges I faced to get to a working solution.

Mark January 8 for the return of Menachem Bazian with more on PHP. We’re looking for speakers for meetings after that. Let Jim Connolly (JConnolly@jtca.com) know if you have something to share with the group.

November 13: Dan Baker on Using VFP as your CMS

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, November 13 at 7 PM. Member Dan Baker will speak on “Using VFP as Your Content Management System for an Information-Rich Website.” This is part 1 of what Dan sees as several presentations on this subject. Dan Baker is a market research analyst in the telecom market who lives in the Poconos and has used his VFP skills to develop what he calls a “information rich” website for his business. The website is an on-line magazine, Black Swan Telecom Journal http://bswan.org. Here’s a short list of the topics Dan plans on discussing in his first talk on the subject. 1. Why website development is a VFP business opportunity of its own, regardless of whether VFP web applications are used or not. 2. What is an “information-rich” website actually? Why is the VFP desktop with FTP uploads an excellent choice for managing a website of this type. 3. The kind of websites where a VFP solution does not make sense as a business opportunity. 4. Why a VFP developer should not be intimidated by rich websites or by competition from Dreamweaver and traditional web designers. 5. How to create a professional site by “standing on the shoulders of giants”, borrowing great design concepts all over the web. 6. Why VFP is often a better choice than web-based content frameworks. 7. How I organize images, CSS, articles, “include” files and other content in folders for easy management. 8. How you can retrieve server-side files and webpage components without using any on-line database. 9. How an information rich website’s pages are organized. 10. Naming conventions in organizing your webpage. 11. Bringing out the artist inside. A quick discussion on the value of images and how to manage them. 12. Helpful training websites and places to find great stuff to enhance your knowledge and make life easier as a website developer. Dan also plans to distribute sample web files including simple server-side code written ASP so that you can play with the concepts and see how the website is organized on your own. In addition, we’ll have a Southwest Fox 2012 review. We need speakers for upcoming meetings. Please let Jim Connolly (JConnolly@jtca.com) know if you have something to share with the group.

October 9: Tamar Granor--"VFP: Ideal for Tools"

Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 9 at 7 PM. As usual, feel free to bring some dinner and come as early as 6:30 PM. Tamar Granor will be previewing her Southwest Fox session, called “VFP: Ideal for Tools.” Abstract: We've had developer tools written in the FoxPro language since the days of FoxPro 2.0. Quite a few come with VFP, and the community has built lots more. In this session, we'll explore the Visual FoxPro language features that make building developer tools possible. We'll look at how the VFP language allows you to dig into projects, classes, data and code. Examples will be drawn from a variety of VFP tools, including those in VFPX.

September 11: Menachem Bazian on SQL Server 2012 (and maybe some Php)

Menachem Bazian returns for another Southwest Fox preview on Tuesday, September 11. He'll present "SQL Server 2012"; the abstract is pretty simple: Learn what's new in SQL Server 2012 and what features it brings to your Visual FoxPro applications. If time permits, he'll also revisit some of the Php material from last month's session.