VFP success stories 1

[Dan Olsson]

Link
has many interesting entries - BUT many of them is linking to advisor.com articles which isn't online anymore (at least not there)
Can anyone point me to somewhere where such documents might be?
I'm specially interested in articles on the Chunnel projekt and Jfast

 

[Mike Lewis]

I have the entire set of FoxPro Advisor, but only in paper form, not electronically. As you pointed out, Advisor is no longer available on line, not even to former subscribers. I don't even have the articles that I wrote myself in electronic form.

I suspect Tamar is better organised than I am. She might be able to help.

I remember the Chunnel article. I used to quote it to my trainees as an example of how VFP was being used for a large scale project.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Olaf Doschke]

I wonder for what reason you'd like that reference. The articles would be interesting for me, too, but if you want to use them as defense about usage of VFP, it's a bit like defending carriages against cars.
There is a defense I can still give today: I still earn my living from supporting VFP applications for a customer, though these applications are currently to be replaced one by one. I go before that happens, though, and that has other reasons not belonging here, it's not sentiments, that drive me away from that customer and indirectly from my current employer.

Bye, Olaf.

PS: By the way, the whole self developed application landscape of that company is a non disclosed success story of VFP for over 30 years and from the number of developers organized in user groups you can assume that was not the only company using such self written systems. It is no different in the aspect of Excel and Access usage as the nucleus of individually designed company software is in many other cases. It partly compares to what's refered to as Excel hell, those Chunnel (euro tunnel) and JFast (military logistics) reference projects are a big exception to the rule, though.

 

[ggreen61]

Yes those were success stories for FoxPro. But the keyword here is 'were'. If these are now in another solution then it is a story to "move on".

I don't think the key point of Visual FoxPro is the database. It is the high level UI that can be created with VFP that connects to any major back-end database. The ability to write a front-end is the key. Who cares what it is written in? Only another programmer that has his own favorite language. Using C# (or .Net generally) is a popular language but this ties it to Windows only; no better than VFP in my opinion. Still have to write the code to connect to the database... It is true that VFP will have to have more solutions to 'keep up' with the latest fad in look-n-feel. But this is true for any developed UI.

The only other care is the code base -- who will maintain it going forward. This is true for any program. There are more .Net developers out there, but if the code is owned by a small shop what will happen? These are the questions that have to be answered.

As an example, I purchased a very good editor for HTML web pages. The tool was being revisioned to keep up. But then the developer got sick. He tried to find someone to purchase the code and take over. No one stepped forward. Now the editor is dead in development. It is still a good editor but will not be further enhanced. It was coded in C# so what is the difference in VFP? If no one wants to take over the code base, it does not matter what language it is in. It is difficult to take over another person's code when it is a very large number of code lines; generally the take over is to just gain the customer base and convert them to your product.

 

[vernpace]

Don't quite know why you are looking for VFP success stories, but I can give you one - a BIG one and a small one. But first I want to say that there are countless VFP success stories. You just don't here about them. So, here is one that could be the the biggest VFP application in existence (bigger and more complex than JFast):

Many of you may have heard of Countrywide Financial. Prior to the financial crisis, Countrywide was the biggest mortgage lender on the planet. So big, that a few large banks wanted to buy them. You probably heard that Countrywide played a big part in the financial crisis. True, they did. What you haven't heard is that the software that Countrywide developed to create tens of billions of dollars of mortgages was written in Foxpro. Yep. They started developing it with dBase III + in the nineties.

Now, the fun part. In January 2008, Bank of America bought Countrywide for $4 billion. You may have heard about that. But what you haven't heard is why: Bank of America bought Countrywide for it's mortgage origination and fullfillment platform. Yep, it paid $4 billion for a gigantic, complex VFP application. Little did BofA know what they were getting into

I went to work for BofA in 2008 as a VFP programmer to help with the transition. I was stunned. Maybe humbled is a better word. In addition to some 30+ VFP programmers, there were Senior VPs who were once VFP programmers, offshore QA, onshore QA, system analysts, an Emergency Response team, two or three .NET support teams (providing dozens of supporting web services), on and on. There was an IT campus with two buildings with approximately 800 people. The application was so extensive that no one had a grasp on the whole thing - even guys who worked there over 15 years. It took a year of training for a VFP programmer to just get up to speed. The application morphed into a SOA architecture, making hundred of calls to dozens of .NET web services. We implemented a few hundred thousand hours of required government regulations (i.e Dodd Frank) over the years.

Now it is all ending. For the past 3-4 years, BofA has been developing a new mortgage platform written in Java. Many VFP folks have left, got laid off, or are learning Java. However, there have been many costly failed attempts to replace it in the past. Many think BofA will fail and will bring back all the FoxPro guys. It has happened before. I chose to leave BofA three months ago. I now manage a small VFP team in a company who completely owes it's success to a relatively new VFP application. Yet another VFP success story

 

[Dan Freeman]

Countrywide was extremely well known when I was at Flash in the early 1990s. Their several failed attempts to convert to another platform were infamous for many years.

Through the early 2000's they were the elephants' graveyard for VFP developers in Southern California.

(Several people I know who worked there said "SOMEONE WILL GO TO JAIL!" over some of the mortgage options they were told to implement.)

Last I heard they were able to replace the software only by dropping some of their product offerings.

I'd describe it more as "FAIL DOWNWARD WHILE HOLDING ON WITH TEETH AND TOENAILS" than as a success story.

 

[vernpace]

Yes, it was a nasty work environment during the Countrywise days. And Countrywide Management and some of the mortgage products were more than questionable. In my opinion, Countrywide actually spearheaded the financial crisis. Before BofA hired me, I made money short selling both Countrywide and BofA

However, I don't think you are seeing the full picture with respect to a VFP success story. Judging the misdeeds of Management is a seperate issue.