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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also excellent built-in documentation, complete with samples and F1 context help. I pretty much learned FoxPro from scratch entirely from it.
how did we go from excellent software, with excellent documentation, that made regular people implement solutions, to the current situation?
But there was a ton of bad software back then, it is just that few remember it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also excellent built-in documentation, complete with samples and F1 context help. I pretty much learned FoxPro from scratch entirely from it.
how did we go from excellent software, with excellent documentation, that made regular people implement solutions, to the current situation?
You don't know what to do? Well, google it, look up Stack Overflow, open an issue or write the company/developers. You just couldn't do that when the applications were mostly offline and you didn't exactly have a full set of international call agents well versed in the software.
I also believe that more companies had tech writers, which is one of the worst fatalities that the "full stack" mindset inflicted on us. Of course, the open source part doesn't really have the option here.
And once you have this, there's a certain peer pressure. IBM delivers a whole shelf of docs for one product? Welp, need to do that, too.
There's also a definite movement towards video material, although that's not a total excuse. As others in this thread pointed out, dBase had video tutorials too (If I ever make it big enough with a "boxed" product, I'll hire some guy with werewolf hair or a woman named Cheryl to do that with a VHS aesthethic). Videos and reference documentation doesn't go together.
I've also encountered more "code clearly and you don't need docs" than previously in recent years, maybe Uncle Bob or some other "thought leader" is preaching that again.
The whole xBase universe is quite fascinating. It might not have been as revolutionary as spreadsheets, but having databases on your homecomputer/PC covers a lot of use cases for regular people and small businesses. Heck, a lot of what we make way too much money with is basically "just" polishing that. (Or trying to sell you pills while you use that, but let's not digress) And dBase and its variants/rivals had that p…
> The whole xBase/Clipper-verse almost seems like a unique dead end, in an industry that keeps pretty much every other technology afloat. Interestingly Claris's FileMaker is still in business: https://www.claris.com/filemaker/pro/ And of course many editions of MS Office include Microsoft Access, which undoubtedly had a role to play in killing dBase, Borland’s Paradox, and Lotus’s Approach. Access’s not quite as perv…
The whole xBase universe is quite fascinating. It might not have been as revolutionary as spreadsheets, but having databases on your homecomputer/PC covers a lot of use cases for regular people and small businesses. Heck, a lot of what we make way too much money with is basically "just" polishing that. (Or trying to sell you pills while you use that, but let's not digress) And dBase and its variants/rivals had that p…
> The whole xBase/Clipper-verse almost seems like a unique dead end, in an industry that keeps pretty much every other technology afloat. Interestingly Claris's FileMaker is still in business: https://www.claris.com/filemaker/pro/ And of course many editions of MS Office include Microsoft Access, which undoubtedly had a role to play in killing dBase, Borland’s Paradox, and Lotus’s Approach. Access’s not quite as perv…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole xBase/Clipper-verse almost seems like a unique dead end, in an industry that keeps pretty much every other technology afloat. Interestingly Claris's FileMaker is still in business: https://www.claris.com/filemaker/pro/ And of course many editions of MS Office include Microsoft Access, which undoubtedly had a role to play in killing dBase, Borland’s Paradox, and Lotus’s Approach. Access’s not quite as perv…
Are these things really better than just opening a sqlite3 database with python?
I think there's still some space for something like fox pro and even access nowadays. Sometimes you just need to solve a problem and that doesn't need to be fancy, specially on the back office.