* Viva Clipper! … 2015 will mark 30 years … *

* Viva Clipper! … 2015 will mark 30 years of an old software development innovation! *

Just talking to a fellow software developer from the old days about the early days of #DBase II, when we were young code monkeys using #xBase languages to build DOS based software and waited desperately for the next big thing in our industry which was the long awaited release of DBase III and the arrival #Quicksilver (a true dbase compiler).

Little did we know that #Foxpro, #VisualFoxpro, #CAVisualObjects, #ObjectVision and #AlaskaXBase would all unsuccessfully but seriously challenge the mother of all xBase programming languages #Clipper . 2015 will mark 30 years of Clipper (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_%28programming_language%29) programming which is still going strong and now lives on through open source projects like #Harbour and #xHarbour.

The current most commercially successful product spawned from the mind of Clipper developers was #FlagShip all of which are now both WinDos and Linux development platform application builders.

And yes, I still code in Clipper, Harbour, Foxpro etc… but only for those many users who know and love the stability and robustness of DOS applications (Rock Solid) who are very happy to make the trade-off of the Windows platform for the gain of database speed, flexibility and reliability offered by RDD performance index’s on big data.

2015 marks over 30th years of Clipper, In my personal view, Ashton Tate’s Dbase innovation which I was once told was first invented within NASAs Jet Population Labs for use in the space programme and then later commercialised by Ashton Tate in 1979, began my love affair with xBase technology development technologies.Image Source: Claudio Lassala’s Blog – Breaking the Language Barrier

I see Paul Sloane (Ex. #AshtonTate UK MD) has been very successful as a speaker and author of innovation, I wonder does he and the others from those Ashton-Tate days have the fullest realisation of the major innovation and technological impact that would be spawned within the xBase community by those old xBase developers (early adopters) like myself who first began the process of making xBase so popular using first dBase and then Clipper.

If you should have any interest in learning a old but new programming language like Clipper / C? for WinDos or Linux platforms, an interesting read maybe the Viva-Clipper! Blog at: https://vivaclipper.wordpress.com/category/hmg/about-hmg/

BTW …dBase (at least in name, appears to have been re-commercialised yet again!) … see: http://www.dbase.com/company/about/

<<< WISHING CLIPPER A HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN 2015! >>>

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<<< Late Addition! >>>

For those die hard dBase fans, I found this after I posted which may also be of interest… http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/DBASE_timeline.png

It appears to support the theory of dBase first beginnings at JPL.

The whisper story was (or most likely urban myth) of a tragic miscalculation and then realise into the commercial wild of VULCAN (aka dbase I which then becoming dbase II), is a story which has always intrigued me as to relation (if any) to any basis in fact or truth.

I know Wiki is perhaps not the best source of facts, but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase

For insights into dBase and Ashton-Tate (George Tate) in the very early days, I also found this recent very interesting article which may interest others, at: http://www.eweek.com/database/30-years-ago-the-rise-fall-and-survival-of-ashton-tates-dbase.html by Darryl Taft, entitled: 30 Years Ago: The Rise, Fall and Survival of Ashton-Tate’s dBASE – See more at: http://www.eweek.com/database/30-years-ago-the-rise-fall-and-survival-of-ashton-tates-dbase-2.html#sthash.UCm5Q6Sq.dpuf

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