Any good places for complete newbies to learn all the xbase dialects?

[desbest]

Hello I'm new to xbase and know absolutely nothing about it but I do know some programming languages outside of xbase.

Can anyone give me some good tutorials, courses or books that can help me learn ALL the different xbase dialects? Free ones are preferred but if I inevitably have to buy a book then I'll do so.

[wriedmann]

Hi Adisa,
personally I have a VO background, so I can tell you only about that. But it may be difficult to learn a development language when you only have a successor to it and not the original product.
May I ask why you would like the learn all xBase dialects? They are relatively different from each other and from the "original" product DBase III.
Wolfgang

[Terry]

Hi Adisa

Further to what Wolfgang has said I would question why you would like to learn all XBase dialects?

The important thing to remember is that in all respects we are are up against time. If you spend time learning XBase, it is time you cannot spend learning X#. X# will not be standing still; it will be marching forward with more to learn as it embraces future technological capabilities.

Terry

[desbest]

Just because something is more popular, is more extensible (via plugins/classes/libraries), more turnkey, more complex, more future-proof, more refined, more quicker or is more integrated, doesn't mean that I'm going to use it. People have a varying and heated opinion about which technology stack is the best to use, as a programmer, for whatever it is that they want to do. People argue about what is better for whatever reason but I just don't want to go down the same pitfalls as I've seen before when programming other things.

For example, here are some things that I don't like

• Convention Over Configuration: I've tried it with Rails and it needs to die.
• Inverse Complexity: Some software likes to make the simple and basic things unnecessarily complex way more than it needs to be, making the complex things under too many plugins under case driven design instead of domain driven design, while putting a SaaS on top
• Hodgepodged turnkey solutions which allow the jquery-fication of programming which leads to drama like Leftpad on NPM
• OOP Object Orientated ProgrammingI hated it years ago and still do now.
• Blunt toolchains: If you only have a hammer, everything else is a nail. But if you have a screwdriver, you're going to also need a nail puller. B)

And more....I wish I could say more examples now but this is a forum post, not a blog article. It would take me a long time to think.

It's long to explain why I don't like those things. It's worthy of an entire blog article.
It's like asking a music producer what equipment they use, to have them talk about something they say is really good. Then another music producer tries it out a few times, decides that they don't like it then they'll never use it again.

If we can do the exact same things with each of them, then the only real difference is the workflow and some people just prefer a certain workflow and cannot wrap their head around a different workflow.

[ic2]

Hello Adisa,

I share a lot of your thoughts.
Most visitors of this forum will find that illogic. And it is certainly not populair .

Dick

[desbest]

Is there an update on this?

[wriedmann]

Hi Adisa,
unfortunately most (or better all) xBase dialects are very old, so it may be hard to find any sources.
Please look at the story of X# https://docs.xsharp.it/doku.php?id=xsharp_story to understand how many years have been passed.
The real origins of xBase have been before MS-DOS with DBase. All other products have started from this one, but inherit basics from then.
But to find Clipper, FoxPro/DOS or DBase learning sources may be hard, and the original prodcuts are not running on modern operating systems anymore (if you don't use some sort of emulators).
And you will not be able to buy many of the Windows development environments anymore, mostly because the relative companies does not exist anymore or the products are discontinued (FoxPro for example).

Or do you are referring of the different X# dialects?
They are mainly here to keep the compatibility to the original products, and to help people move their code from an old unsupported plattforms to never, supported platforms (I have a really small software house, but I have several millions of lines of code to maintain and to move over, so you may understand why dialects are so important in X#).
You can find a matrix of the differences here:
https://www.xsharp.eu/itm-help/dialects
But we have to ask Robert if this matrix has to be adjusted.
Wolfgang

[desbest]

But to find Clipper, FoxPro/DOS or DBase learning sources may be hard, and the original prodcuts are not running on modern operating systems anymore (if you don't use some sort of emulators).
And you will not be able to buy many of the Windows development environments anymore, mostly because the relative companies does not exist anymore or the products are discontinued (FoxPro for example).

I use Windows 10 but Windows 7 is the de facto standard for a standardised baseline compatibility for windows.

Do you know which development environments for which dialects, are compatible on Windows 7 and above?

[wriedmann]

Hi Adisa,
Windows 7 is out of maintenance for several years now, so it is at risk - and at least here in the European Community it is not more admitted for business use because of the data protection legislation.
Even Windows 10 will exit from maintenance in a few years (on October 14, 2025).

Visual Objects in its latest version is running happily on Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11, on both 32 and 64 bit versions, but it is not more possible to buy it.
Microsoft Visual FoxPro should run also on these operating systems, but I don't know if it is available to buy.
Xbase++ from Alaska Software runs also on all these systems, and it is regularly available to buy.
Flagship from Multisoft is also available to buy, and should also run on all modern Windows operating systems (and also on Linux and some Unix dialects).
Harbour/XHarbour is an open source product, and AFAIK it should be available to download, and it should also run on all current operating systems.

But: if you have to start from scratch, the only really practicable system is X#: runs on Windows from 7 up using the .NET Framework, and is the most modern and advanced xBase development system, under heavy development, and open source.
All other systems should only be used if you have legacy systems to maintain and to support.

Wolfgang