Hi Malcolm, I appreciate your input, as always.
I don't dispute the value/usefulness of Python/Dabo, but since day 1 of my excursion into the PC world it's been investment on top of investment, so for the near term I'm on mission to recover investment before seriously considering any option. And when the time comes, I wouldn't do another re-write myself, I've had it up to here with re-writes. But I can think in terms of causing it to be done, when the time is right. An understated, but large point with all this: the vast majority of the world's PC's (and particularly my own target market, small business) are running Windows. Technical superiority and competence isn't the issue, it's marketing. Folks here seem to acknowledge that, but there isn't a very high interest level in the subject, curiously. I greatly respect the pioneering work some folks here are doing, and especially the willingness to share, but also caution people to consider my arguments. Bill > Hi Bill, > > Like you, I sell a suite of proprietary products built on a > huge code base of FPD, FPW, and VFP code. > > At the moment I'm aggressively studying Python as an > alternative to VFP. While I haven't started to port any of my > code yet, I'm beginning to think that porting my code base > may not be the huge effort I originally feared. Why? Because > what makes my products unique is their design and algorithms, > not the actual plumbing. And I don't need to re-invent my > design or algorithms - just the plumbing. > > One of the things I noticed when I moved my FPD/FPW > applications to VFP was how much my code base began to > shrink. Partially because I was cleaning up (refactoring) > poorly designed code and partially because VFP simplified a > lot of functionality that I had previously built by hand. I'm > confident that I'm going to see the same type of reduction if > I port to Python - especially in the fringe areas of my > application that took me outside VFP's 'comfort zone', eg. > web interfaces, regular expressions, os interfaces, etc. > > After studying Python and then reviewing my VFP code with a > fresh perspective, I'm surprised about how much VFP 'cruft' > is buried in my code. Cruft that is directly tied to the VFP > language or workarounds for the VFP language vs. code > fundamental to my application's logic. > > Bottom line: At this point, without having gotten my hands > dirty yet<g>, I'm a lot more optimistic about the feasibility > of porting apps from VFP to Python than I was several months ago. > > _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
