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The newest developer conference dedicated to Visual FoxPro! We want to provide practical techniques and best practices for all skill levels that can be applied to the problems and challenges in developing applications today. Sessions will give a better understanding of OOP; upgrading existing VFP skills; address the latest changes and innovations in VFP; knowledge of additional tools such as SQL Server, API’s and .NET; business advice; taking your application to market; and “nuts and bolts” sessions that you can use today. You will also have the opportunity to mix, blend, come together, mingle, join, unite, socialize, circulate, associate and altogether rub elbows with the top speakers and recognized vendors in our industry. Please join us for what we are certain will be a valuable and entertaining conference.

Date:
Location:

• October 19
• October 20
• October 21
• October 22
• Picture archive

VFP Past, Present and Future

The audience at this point had been reeled fully in by Craig, who then related how "Doug then pulled out his computer and wanted to run a Stonefield Query to determine the cause of the problem, followed by Rick attempting to hack the braking system using HackCX." Craig asked "but how will you know if you can accurately reproduce the problem?", then "so we pushed the car back up the hill to try again." With the wool removed, everyone laughed (for some, after a sigh of relief). The point of the story, according to Craig, was that many people are fearful about the future of VFP, unnecessarily, and we need to dispel that fear.

VFP Past (1984 to 2004)

VFP Present and Future

VFP 9 SP2, currently in CTP, will ultimately deliver a number of bug fixes, good compatibility with Windows Vista and some exciting reporting exnhancements. For example, the Dynamics tab in the report form field properties dialog is essentially a PRINT WHEN on steroids. Properties can also be set according to report output type, too. For example, a VFP report that is going to be output to HTML might need to have certain form elements turned into links. You can now make those kinds of decisions according to the output target, which gives VFP developers a lot of flexibility.

Doug then showed off the new My namespace that is part of the CTP Sedna download. This is similar to the VB.NET 2005 My namespace and is very easy to extend via a builder. Everything that defines the MY namespace is driven by a VFP table (of course), and it all comes with extensive documentation. This is one of Doug’s personal contributions to Sedna.

LOCAL My as MY
My.
My.Data
My.Settings
My.Computer.Audio.PlaySystemSound(...
My.Computer.Clock
My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.MyDocuments

Rick returned to the stage to describe and demo some of the new enhancements made to the Sedna Data Explorer. First, Rick reminded everyone (again) not to install the Sedna CTP on a production machine. Some of the issues addressed include a problem with default values not showing up properly and auto incremental fields causing strange behaviors. Rick made a point of saying how he has benefited from community input to make improvements to the Sedna release.

Many of the UI changes to the Data Explorer bring it much closer to mimicing the behavior of SQL Server Query Analyzer. The F5 button now executes query, just like QA (yeah!). Rushmore optimization status is now visible and font and sorting options are much more consistent. A useful (and cool) feature is the ability to output schema definition information to HTML format, and be able to easily customize the look and feel via CSS. Rick showed off a "Copy field list to clipboard" feature that he coded last weekend also. He could not confirm that this will make it into the final release of Sedna.

Rick was really impressed at how fast he was able to update a cleint to SQL Server 2005 Express recently. Rick next discussed NET4COM, which bridges the gap between VFP and .NET, exposing many .NET framework pieces. It makes it easy to use .NET assemblies from within VFP. For example, you can take easy advantage of the strong regular expression functions available in .NET. Users require .NET 2.0 or later.

Craig came back up and dove into the Vista toolkit:

• MSFeeds (RSS): global store of RSS fedds. This is a wrapper around this store for use inside of VFP; build your own news aggregator.
• Windows Desktop Search: demonstrates how NET4COM type technologies can be used to wrap the Windows Desktop Search .NET libraries inside of VFP to search files and emails on a workstation, similar to the way Google Desktop works. You can use SQL syntax or a paramterized command text to search to define the search criteria (shades of LINQ?).
• New Common Dialogues: Task dialogs: Messageboxes on steroids. Can work on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
• XAML: Using NET4COM technology, you can render XAML dynamically within Visual FoxPro.

Craig told an abbreviated version of the VFPX story, how Ken approached him with the idea last year and how it was originally set up as SednaX on GotDotNet. Now, it exists as VFPX on CodePlex, and supports quite a few important projects. Get involved!

Similar to VFPX, but with a different focus, VFPY is a community project to provide a robust web development environment for VFP developers.

Miscellany

Michael Hogan’s FoxPro Success Stories site; another good one is on the FoxWiki.

A few great promotional videos, created by Kevin Ragsdale, really pumped up the crowd. These were great!

DBi Technologies has generously donated several commercial controls to VFP developers.

One big surprise was Doug Henning receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from Ken Levy. Well deserved!

October 20

by Dave Bernard

The Security Cookbook
Christof Wollenhaupt

For me, this was a much anticipated session. Christof is a prolific constributor to the FoxPro community, but he is rarely seen on this side of the pond. His session did not disappoint...

Christof isn't a guy who enters a pool by wading in via the steps; he dives right into the deep end. He dropped every jaw in the room by running an application protected by ReFox Level II then nonchalantly displaying the original VCX source code. Some protection!

Don't include the Report Designer in your code; it will allow you to bypass any third-party security. It's a whole programming environment! Build the report designer as a separate EXE that hits empty tables and not the production tables.

Assume that source code is not protectable. Protecting source code in this day and age is near impossible, according to Christof. However, obfuscation techniques can make it much, much more difficult for a hacker to be able to understand and use your source code, even if it's available. As with many of Christof's solutions, it is both simple and elegant: add the ability, say through an INCLUDE file, for your program to replace all variable and procedure names with large unfathomable strings that are still valid names for Visual FoxPro:

#DEFINE VAR_Sum         QÍEÃúÿec2ÏÞJåVâ_Aêb1MûÈvuÔwÈYYEÉÒÆàáÑÅpKþO
#DEFINE VAR_Count       gÜäXùsÝÑsQë5RíÁÁÓÑwOãÎUoyÌÑÈycÄp
#DEFINE VAR_Price       I4ÝûtÁÞ5SÄAy9xjþÃDøüZwä
#DEFINE PRC_GetDiscount ËzrhÎvôhýÕñNäSÃ_2QyFôhN9ùÔYüOÜQîÉò_WRVðWï
#DEFINE PRC_GetVAR      ÎkE_"rlèÐÿhÌÛtÄòÛËßaÝUSS7mvOe

Christof spent a lot of time on the importance of ensuring strong password usage in an application. The password defines how secure encrypted data are; if you know the password, it doesn't matter at all how secure or insecure a data encryption algorithm is. Given that, it is surprising that few applications ensure that strong passwords are enforced (gulp! mea culpa). This applies not only to the IT arena, but to combination locks the world over!

Password strength depends on a number of factors:

• A good password is not driven by personal aspects. Bad passwords are the name or birthday of the kids or spouse, favorite car or pet, or other passwords that are directly related to the user's personal environment.
• Passwords shouldn't contain words. The Internet contains word lists in all major languages that contain regular words, names, places and frequently used passwords. Specialized tools can use these word lists to try these passwords. This greatly reduces the amount of territory that the hacker needs to cover to get at the password.
• In theory, 128-bit passwords are equivalent to a length of 16 characters. However, hardly anyone uses all 256 possible available characters; most passwords are formed out of characters, sometimes digits and seldom special characters. If you only use digits to create a 128-bit password, you need a password with 40 characters!

For many people, deployment is almost treated as an afterthought. But the installer is the first thing your users will see.

• Starting InnoSetup is significantly faster than starting InstallShield Express.
• The compilation is significantly faster.
• The setup executable is significantly (about 10 MB) smaller.
• The installation process is significantly faster.
• Uninstalling the application is significantly faster.

• Rick Borup recommended UnClean 2, an improved replacement for the uninstall portion of the Add/Remove Programs applet (ARP). It provides full and clear access to all available information. You can delete an uninstall entry if you discover that it's no longer valid. And of course you can remove, change, or repair programs in the same way that you can with ARP.
• See InnoSetup resources on the FoxWiki.
• Check out Gavin Lambert's InnoSetup Snippets.

Mike has an easygoing and direct style; you always know exactly where he stands and how he feels about particular technologies, and he backs his opinion up with real world experience.

• Consists primarily of DHTML, JavaScript and XMLHTTP.
• Create Web apps with mature, freely available technologies.
• Browser client code calls server side code directly without reposting the entire page back to the Server.
• Client side code pulls incremental UI updates in response to user action, enhancing the illusion of speed.
• Contrast this with standard Web applications where typically all business logic and UI creation is managed on the server, with the client browser merely rendering the content.
• AJAX makes the client an active part of the application.
• Incidentally, despite the "X" in the AJAX name, XML is actually not used by most AJAX implementations. XML use is optional.

• Use AJAX to make asynchronous background calls to retrieve data.
• Use JavaScript to update elements of web pages without redrawing the entire page.
• Build fast interactive web applications with all of the bells and whistles.

• Script.aculo.usfor cross-browser user interface Javascript libraries;
• Prototype for a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications;
• Rico for an open source Javascript library for creating rich Internet applications;
• Dojo for another open source Javascript toolkit;
• Max Kiesler for lots of AJAX tutorials and resources.

Cathy has done an amazing job of distilling the broad and sometimes arcane subject of Project Management into a single session, jammed packed with nuggets of useful techniques and guidelines. It's a great roadmap for avoiding typical pitfalls and ensuring a smooth successful process for any project.

• Satisfying the customer through early and continuous delivery of value-driven software;
• Harness change requirements as a competitive advantage for the customer, even late in the development process;
• Tight frequent collaboration between business people and trusted, motivated developers in self-organizing teams;
• Working software is the primary measure of progress and success;
• Maximizing the amount of work not done.

• Short (weekly, bi-weekly or monthly) delivery horizons; to show progress is more important than to reach full functionality for any given iteration;
• Prototypes do not exist; all code is live running code;
• Maximize the use of automated testing (something that few developers do);
• Little or no team hierarchy;
• Analysis, Design, Test and Code are all done simultaneously;
• The code itself is the final documentation.

• The customer is not always right; he may have a point, and that point may or may not be valid. (illegalities, e.g.)
• Any code that's checked in must be in a releasable state
• Don't give the customer an estimate, give them a "forecast", just like a weather forecast. Do you always believe it?
• 80% of software applications are shipped without adequate testing
• Read Code Complete
• Method names should be verb-noun combinations, e.g., "do something to this"
• Comment the why, not the what; answer "why did he do it that way?"
• "Code as if whoever maintains your code is a violent psychopath who knows where you live"

"I am not a Microsoft hater!" he pleaded...

VFP's future, as a stand-alone monolithic development environment, is limited, due to a lack of Microsoft marketing investment and a shrinking VFP job market.

But that doesn't mean it's time to jump ship! It's time to extend!

First, Mike outlined a foundation of ideas and possibilities that go beyond the pure technological aspects of software development, things that software developers sometimes lose sight of when debating various technology approaches:

• Focus on keeping current customers happy
• Build and sell vertical market solutions
• Add web tools to your skill set
• Participate in community projects like VFPx and VFPy
• Increase your exposure; market the brand that is you!
• Sell business solutions, not technology
• Be willing to do maintenance work

Common concerns about .NET, Java and C/C++ development, from a VFP'er point of view held common ground in one major area: steep learning curve. I can speak for myself that this is the single biggest barrier to fully adopting any different development methodology: it is difficult to justify in terms of time, expense and lost opportunity cost. The pros for these are why we even consider them: expanding opportunities, growing job market (mostly), backed by large companies, etc. For me, these pros are outweighed by the con.

PHP, PERL, Python, Javascript and Ruby were also mentioned by Mike as worth considering. Javascript and Ruby warrant closer attention because both are "hot" technologies, and Ruby has perhaps the shallowest learning curve.

Most interestingly, Mike did a six-month survey of the job market using DICE, Monster, etc., listings (probably skewed a bit away from small company positions). There were several surprises:

• Java held a 37% market share, and was growing at a rate of 12%
• .NET: 16% share, but is declining at a rate of 28%!
• C++: 15% share, declining by 17%
• PERL: 11%, growing at a rate of 10% (big surprise to Mike)
• Javascript: 10%, growing at 9%
• PHP: 4%, growing at 24%
• AJAX: 2%, growing at 57%
• Ruby: 1%, growing at 30%
• Delphi: 1%, growing at 9%
• VFP: 0%, declining by 5%

Mike also surveyed database tools and found SQL Server slipping a bit right after the launch of SQL Server 2005; not sure why. Oracle held the most market share (61%) while MySQL was growing the fastest at 20%.

Mike summarized the kind of work in which he was currently engaged, which included "working like crazy in VFP--really no end in sight", integrating Javascript, AJAX, DOM and CSS work with VFP, learning more and more SQL Server and keeping his eyes on PHP, Ruby and .NET.

What should you do? Whether you're an employee, independent contractor or entrepreneur, make a business decision. Where will you get the most ROI? Where can you deliver the most value to your clients? Start learning other technologies now; read, get tools, etc.

Don't Be A Hater! You'll starve! Employers and customers like optimism.

Lunch
Another nice lunch outside; plenty of buzz about Craig Berntsen's Agile session, Mike Feltman's "Where do you want to go today?", both of Christof's sessions and Andy's Meta Data session. Sounds like everyone is having a pretty good time and learning a lot. Lot's of networking going on, too.

Crashing VFP and Preventing Crashes
Christof Wollenhaupt

I learned from my first Christof experience to prepare myself to drink from the proverbial firehose. At least this time I wasn't surprised by the sheer breadth and depth of his material, especially for such an arcane subject as C5 crashes.

What is a crash?

How does this happen? Lots of possibilities in versions of VFP prior to version 9. Here are some of the reasons:

• Bugs in VFP
• Dangling references
• Defective drivers (printers, video adapters)
• Defective H/W
• Imperfect system software (anti-virus, spam filters, firewalls, etc.)

Errors like these often pop up Dr. Watson, Microsoft's built-in bug reporting tool. One option is to allow Dr. Watson to send information to Microsoft about the error; the problem is, enough information is sent to pose a potential privacy issue because all application memory (containing SSN's, passwords, etc.) is sent. This information is stored in a SQL Server database at Microsoft to aid in statistical bug analysis (proof, according to Christof, that SQL Server can store large amounts of data!)

On the other hand, you can get to this data yourself: kill the DW20.exe process via Task Manager (to preserve the file of information), then look for a DMP file in the user's Temp folder (Windows Explorer, navigate to %Temp%). Open the dump file in VS.NET, choose DEBUG, Start Debugging, then the Disassembly pane will be sitting on the error line.

Look at the loaded module list on the right: there you can tell if it's your application or a third party vendor package that's crashing; match the disassembly address with the address column in the module list to verify what crashed.

Christof then demoed in rapid fire fashion many ways of generating C5 errors, most since fixed in VFP 9:

   VFP 5, 6: Include a file in a VCX class that contains
      #IF UnknownVariable
      #ENDIF

   VFP 5: Try this for an object that's not yet on a form:
          olbl = CreateObject("Label")
          oLbl.AutoSize = .T.
          oLbl.Visible = .T.

   VFP 8: lcvar = "EVALUATE(lcVar)"
          EVALUATE(lcVar)

VFP 6, VFP 7: hitting the boundary of VFP's 4K internal memory paging mechanism:

t=0
DO while .t.
  @ 0,0 say Str(t)
  lc = Sys(2015)
  Public (lc)
  Store Replicate("X",Rand()*999)+Chr(13)+Chr(10)+;
    Chr(13) to (lc)
  lc2 = Sys(2015)
  Dimension &lc2[1]
  ALines((lc2),&lc)
  t=t+1
  Release (lc)
  Release (lc2)
EndDo

Sys(3054,12)
Select ;
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.yxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxy, ;
  Left(xaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.;
  yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay,1) AS ;
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, :
  xiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix, ;
  xx, Space(20) AS xx, Space(40) AS ;
  xxyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,;
  x1x, x2x, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.yy, ;
  xx.ylllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly, ;
  xx.ybbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbby, Space(20) as xzzzzzzzzzzzzzx, ;
  xx.yttttttttttttttttttttttttttttty, ;
  Space(20) xqqwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwqqqqx ;
From xxxxxxxxxxxxuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

"Cool" is buggy; boring code is great!

Great presentation, Christof!

October 22

by Dave Bernard

Using the VFP Debugger Effectively
Tamar Granor

Tamar started right in by reviewing the various ways to access the debugger components. Then, she went into detail on each of the debugger windows:

• Trace: Tracing between breaks: checking this option "animates" the trace window when program execution is not on a breakpoint, causing performance to degrade. In the rare case you want to use this behavior, you can set execution throttle to slow the display of the running code. You can roll the mouse over a variable and a tool tip showing the current value is displayed.
• Program Stack: displays the chain of control that the program followed to get to the current line of code.
• Locals: displays all variables in scope. Tied to whichever Call Stack window entry is active.
• Watch: displays the current value of user-entered expressions. A good practice is to put the MESSAGE() expression in the Watch window.
• Debug Output: displays programmer-defined debug output and assertions. You can save the results to a file, too.

ASSERT [expr] [message]