Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, December 13 at 7 PM in Room 158, DeVry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA. As usual, feel free to bring some dinner and arrive as early as 6:30 PM.
I’ll be speaking this month, presenting my Southwest Fox session “Bind Events for Better Applications.” Here’s the abstract:
At first glance, the BindEvent() function may seem unnecessary. After all, why bind to an event when you can just write code in the event's method?
In this session, we'll look at why BindEvent() and its cousins, the Access and Assign methods, are so valuable. Using examples drawn from real applications, we'll see how event binding lets you do things you couldn't otherwise do, and simplifies code for other tasks. We'll also talk about the difficulties involved in debugging code that uses event binding.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
November meeting: Conference review and tools we love
Our next meeting is Tuesday, November 8 at 7 PM. As usual, feel free to bring some dinner and arrive at 6:30.
This month, we'll review Southwest Fox and the DevConnections conference being held this week in Las Vegas. Then, we'll continue our ongoing conversation about tools we use. Plan to share information about one tool you love.
Mark December 13 on your calendar. I'll present "Bind events for better applications," discussion BindEvent, Access and Assign.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Tuesday, October 11--Menachem Bazian on Stored Procedures
Our Southwest Fox previews continue on Tuesday, October 11 as Menachem Bazian presents "Boosting Your Client Server Application Using Stored Procedures." Because this session will be 3-hour precon at Southwest Fox, we will begin very close to 6:30 PM.
We will provide dinner again this month (we'll eat while Menachem speaks), so if you plan to come and eat, email tamar@tamargranor.com to ensure we have enough food.
Bio: Menachem Bazian, CPA, CITP is President and founder of BC Consulting Services, Inc, a Business Management and Technology Consulting Firm based in Northern NJ. Menachem has been a database developer for over 20 years, having starting out with Dbase II and moved on to Dbase III, Clipper, Foxbase and all the versions of Visual FoxPro to date. He returned to the Fox speaking circuit several years ago and has presented at Southwest Fox for several years. He has published numerous articles and books over the years.
Abstract: Stored procedures can be essential to an efficient client server application. Stored procedures provide a great many potential benefits including more efficient processing of certain operations, front-end-independent operation (which can be especially useful if your database is being accessed by both a desktop and a web based application) and more.
But stored procedures come at a cost too. Stored procedures are back end specific and they also require a little different way of thinking about your code and application.
This session will introduce you to stored procedures using two of the most popular SQL back ends: MySQL and SQL Server.
We will provide dinner again this month (we'll eat while Menachem speaks), so if you plan to come and eat, email tamar@tamargranor.com to ensure we have enough food.
Bio: Menachem Bazian, CPA, CITP is President and founder of BC Consulting Services, Inc, a Business Management and Technology Consulting Firm based in Northern NJ. Menachem has been a database developer for over 20 years, having starting out with Dbase II and moved on to Dbase III, Clipper, Foxbase and all the versions of Visual FoxPro to date. He returned to the Fox speaking circuit several years ago and has presented at Southwest Fox for several years. He has published numerous articles and books over the years.
Abstract: Stored procedures can be essential to an efficient client server application. Stored procedures provide a great many potential benefits including more efficient processing of certain operations, front-end-independent operation (which can be especially useful if your database is being accessed by both a desktop and a web based application) and more.
But stored procedures come at a cost too. Stored procedures are back end specific and they also require a little different way of thinking about your code and application.
This session will introduce you to stored procedures using two of the most popular SQL back ends: MySQL and SQL Server.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
September: Steve Ellenoff on upsizing without pain
We continue our Southwest Fox previews continue this month with a visit from Steve Ellenoff on Tuesday, September 13. The meeting will begin at 7PM. We'll be providing dinner this month, so come as early as 6:30 to join us. Please email tamar@tamargranor.com if you plan to share our dinner, so we'll make sure to have enough. Don't forget to mark your calendar for our October 11 meeting featuring the return of Menachem Bazian with another Southwest Fox Preview.
Steve will speak on "Working with Remote Data the 'VFP Way': Upsizing to SQL Server Without Redesigning Your Application."
Ask any developer who has migrated a FoxPro application to SQL Server and almost every one of them will tell you that you need to rethink the way your application works: No more Browse windows, no more record navigation buttons, no more XBASE style mentality. In other words, not only do you need to re-code your application for the actual data handling, you also need to re-design the way it works! That's funny?! I don't remember my customers asking me to redesign screens and functionality just because they wanted to take advantage of the many benefits of using a robust remote database such as SQL Server!
So are we stuck to take this advice without negative consequences? The answer is a resounding NO! While it's true that "redesigning" our XBASE styled FoxPro applications while upsizing to SQL Server is a recommended best practice, there are several ways we can minimize the need to change the way our Fox applications look and behave. Furthermore, we can do so with minimal negative side effects. This session will cover a variety of strategies and tips which will allow you to upsize your applications to any remote data back-end, such as MS SQL Server, MySQL, and many others, with minimal impact on the look and feel of your applications. We'll also cover a number of "how to do that" tips for upsizing the application when migrating from FoxPro local data that I have not seen discussed elsewhere.
Steve Ellenoff is the president of SJE Consulting / Custom Technology Solutions (http://www.sjects.com) founded in 1999. With over 20 years of programming experience, he and his company continue to use Visual FoxPro and other technologies to deliver cost effective, feature rich, database intensive desktop and web solutions for companies small and large. Steve has been working with FoxPro since version 2.6 for Windows, although he considers his many years using Dbase and Clipper to be his unofficial start with FoxPro.
Steve has presented topics on FoxPro at several conferences and user groups, and had numerous tips published by FoxPro Advisor magazine. Steve is the author of the Win7TLib VFPX project (vfpx.codeplex.com), which allows VFP developers to tap into the new functionality of the Windows 7 Taskbar.
Steve also has a background in C and C++ development and headed the popular open source pinball project PinMAME (www.pinmame.com) for many years. Additionally he made many contributions to the even more popular open source video game project, MAME (http://mamedev.org). Both projects rely heavily on virtualization and emulation which have long been one of Steve's favorite areas of technology.
In 2008 Steve became one of the founding members of Big Guys Pinball, LLC (http://www.bigguyspinball.com). The company has used his software emulation and reverse engineering skill set to create a product that allows pinball owners to replace their "proprietary / no longer available" pinball hardware systems with common, off the shelf PC components.
Steve fulfilled a childhood dream in 2009 when he was hired to do contract work to help develop the video game: Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for XBOX360 and Sony Playstation 3 (http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/143/14307127.html). As a kid growing up in the 80's video game craze, Steve taught himself how to program computers at a young age for the sole purpose of creating a video game some day. Along the way, the dream got put on hold as the more practical business side of software development took center stage. When video gaming console developer Farsight Studios contacted Steve in 2008, the long forgotten dream suddenly became a reality. The game was released in September 2009 and was met with rave reviews from critics and players alike.
Steve’s latest hobby involves fulfilling another childhood dream, learning to play the drums. Although already a decent guitar player, bass player, and singer from his teen years, Steve always dreamed of making tons of noise on the drums. Prompted by the fun he had playing the “toy” drums for the Xbox360 game Guitar Hero: World Tour, Steve decided to purchase a real set of drums in July 2009, a vintage red Tama “Rock Star” kit. Armed with some great instructional drumming videos, Steve’s been banging away ever since and loving every minute of it!
Steve will speak on "Working with Remote Data the 'VFP Way': Upsizing to SQL Server Without Redesigning Your Application."
Ask any developer who has migrated a FoxPro application to SQL Server and almost every one of them will tell you that you need to rethink the way your application works: No more Browse windows, no more record navigation buttons, no more XBASE style mentality. In other words, not only do you need to re-code your application for the actual data handling, you also need to re-design the way it works! That's funny?! I don't remember my customers asking me to redesign screens and functionality just because they wanted to take advantage of the many benefits of using a robust remote database such as SQL Server!
So are we stuck to take this advice without negative consequences? The answer is a resounding NO! While it's true that "redesigning" our XBASE styled FoxPro applications while upsizing to SQL Server is a recommended best practice, there are several ways we can minimize the need to change the way our Fox applications look and behave. Furthermore, we can do so with minimal negative side effects. This session will cover a variety of strategies and tips which will allow you to upsize your applications to any remote data back-end, such as MS SQL Server, MySQL, and many others, with minimal impact on the look and feel of your applications. We'll also cover a number of "how to do that" tips for upsizing the application when migrating from FoxPro local data that I have not seen discussed elsewhere.
Steve Ellenoff is the president of SJE Consulting / Custom Technology Solutions (http://www.sjects.com) founded in 1999. With over 20 years of programming experience, he and his company continue to use Visual FoxPro and other technologies to deliver cost effective, feature rich, database intensive desktop and web solutions for companies small and large. Steve has been working with FoxPro since version 2.6 for Windows, although he considers his many years using Dbase and Clipper to be his unofficial start with FoxPro.
Steve has presented topics on FoxPro at several conferences and user groups, and had numerous tips published by FoxPro Advisor magazine. Steve is the author of the Win7TLib VFPX project (vfpx.codeplex.com), which allows VFP developers to tap into the new functionality of the Windows 7 Taskbar.
Steve also has a background in C and C++ development and headed the popular open source pinball project PinMAME (www.pinmame.com) for many years. Additionally he made many contributions to the even more popular open source video game project, MAME (http://mamedev.org). Both projects rely heavily on virtualization and emulation which have long been one of Steve's favorite areas of technology.
In 2008 Steve became one of the founding members of Big Guys Pinball, LLC (http://www.bigguyspinball.com). The company has used his software emulation and reverse engineering skill set to create a product that allows pinball owners to replace their "proprietary / no longer available" pinball hardware systems with common, off the shelf PC components.
Steve fulfilled a childhood dream in 2009 when he was hired to do contract work to help develop the video game: Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for XBOX360 and Sony Playstation 3 (http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/143/14307127.html). As a kid growing up in the 80's video game craze, Steve taught himself how to program computers at a young age for the sole purpose of creating a video game some day. Along the way, the dream got put on hold as the more practical business side of software development took center stage. When video gaming console developer Farsight Studios contacted Steve in 2008, the long forgotten dream suddenly became a reality. The game was released in September 2009 and was met with rave reviews from critics and players alike.
Steve’s latest hobby involves fulfilling another childhood dream, learning to play the drums. Although already a decent guitar player, bass player, and singer from his teen years, Steve always dreamed of making tons of noise on the drums. Prompted by the fun he had playing the “toy” drums for the Xbox360 game Guitar Hero: World Tour, Steve decided to purchase a real set of drums in July 2009, a vintage red Tama “Rock Star” kit. Armed with some great instructional drumming videos, Steve’s been banging away ever since and loving every minute of it!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Southwest Fox previews for September and October
We're excited to announce that both our September and October meetings will feature Southwest Fox 2011 previews. On September 13, our speaker will be Steve Ellenoff, while on October 11, Menachem Bazian will speak. We're still working with them to decide which of their sessions will be presented.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
August meeting--Tools and more tools
Our next meeting will be Tuesday night, August 9, at 7:00 PM. Our topic this month is "Tools and more tools" and we're all the speakers. Please come prepared to discuss or demonstrate a tool you use that makes software development easier. It can be a VFP tool or a more general computing tool. It can be a one-trick pony or a great big game-changer. (While we won't force anyone to speak, the meeting will be more valuable, the more people share.)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
July 12 -- New location, Tamar Granor on hard SQL queries
This month, the Philadelphia VFP User Group moves to our new meeting location in Room 158 of DeVry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA. The folks at DeVry are letting us use the room for free; the only cost is that, at this first meeting, we'll hear briefly from a DeVry representative.
The meeting on Tuesday, July 12, begins at 7 PM. Feel free to come as early as 6:30 and bring some dinner.
This month, we'll continue with Southwest Fox previews. I'll be rehearsing my session "Joins and Subqueries: Using SQL Commands for the Hard Stuff."
Abstract: Writing simple SQL queries isn't hard to learn. But as soon as you need
something a little more complex, you get tangled up in inner joins vs. outer joins and where to use a subquery and so forth.
This session will bridge the gap between simple and complex queries with a deep dive into the JOIN clause and the use of subqueries. We'll also talk about how to
optimize queries and the tools VFP provides to help you.
While this session will focus on VFP's SQL commands, much of the information will be applicable to other SQL dialects.
Mark August 9 and September 13 for our next two meetings.
The meeting on Tuesday, July 12, begins at 7 PM. Feel free to come as early as 6:30 and bring some dinner.
This month, we'll continue with Southwest Fox previews. I'll be rehearsing my session "Joins and Subqueries: Using SQL Commands for the Hard Stuff."
Abstract: Writing simple SQL queries isn't hard to learn. But as soon as you need
something a little more complex, you get tangled up in inner joins vs. outer joins and where to use a subquery and so forth.
This session will bridge the gap between simple and complex queries with a deep dive into the JOIN clause and the use of subqueries. We'll also talk about how to
optimize queries and the tools VFP provides to help you.
While this session will focus on VFP's SQL commands, much of the information will be applicable to other SQL dialects.
Mark August 9 and September 13 for our next two meetings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)