Operating Systems and Clipper 2

[GAstrada]

Dear brothers, programmers, and the like. I was involved, (directly or undirectly), in many forums here, Clipper programmers, where, I wasn't sure about the answer to write, in many cases. Why?
Becouse I realized that almost all the answers, (and the questions I , myself, asqued me), consistently, were AWERE of the fact that our programs only run IF AN OS IS SUPPORTING THEM.

None of us are futurist, but, thinking in our business, we must agree in the fact that we should not expect that our language (Clipper and the like), will be supported forever. (by the OS).

I stated formerly, in other forum, that "operating systems were more a fact of 'marketing', than a fact of 'science'". It's true, and still I think it. Perhaps the worst OS is the leading OS in the world, .. or not. who knows?

Maybe all the OS should have the 'chance' to be tested by us, and we all should be strong inough to 'say our point of view'. Specially those OS that are "open source", a great advantage to us.

In the other hand: Internet world, and software world, is, as long as I know, the most 'constantly changing world': Today there are, say,.. 2000 compannys involved in it: tomorrow will be 1500 (with some hundred of people off of work), maybe the next week there will be 3000 compannys in the bussines. It's not reliable.

So , it's not reliable that I migrate my clipper apps to xbase++, dbase2000, and the like. And assure my customers that they will run for years.

Every Company that works migrating Clipper to 32 bits and GUI and the like, should, potentialy, shut down.

What's the response to our customers?
What's the way we must assume?

Thanks, Gustavo

 

[Elkari]

It not only is the OS that Clipper programmers have to worry about getting their application to work on, but also third party libraries they have linked in. I do not know how many more versions of Windows I can keep my programs running on (Windows NT & 2000 are a real problem), but what about those handy third parties we hae been using that are no longer supported? We can tweek Clipper all we want to get it to work on any platform, but if a third party fails, there is nothing we can do. This will signal the beginning of the end to Clipper programs.

 

[GAstrada]

Thanks, Elkari, you added the "third party librarys" support.
Think that now, almost all the problems are "on the table", for we to make a constructive dialog.
We MUST talk about our problems.
A little 'hint' that I'll discuss latter: the difference between a 'little' customer, and a 'large' customer.
They tend to behave different.

See you, and all others.
Thanks.

 

[teorema]

New Free Compiler Clipper 32 bits

http://www.harbour-project.org/

 

[GAstrada]

Thanks, Teorema, Harbour-Project seems (because of it's open source), a new point of view of the future. But, for now, it's really very new, and , (think), we must be in the future, closely looking at it's evolution.
Really, it can potentially surprise us !!
See you, and all others.
Tanks.