So, I’m plodding through the SOAP 3.0 Toolkit, looking for the clue on what component needs to be installed on a machine with the VFP 8.0 runtime in order for it to consume web services, and I come across this pearl of wisdom in the readme:
If you are first time user of SOAP, read the documentation.
Words of wisdom we should all live by. RTFM.
And if you are technical writer for Microsoft, spelling and grammar checker help lots!
Klings’s Korollaries.
Suits and Geeks is Arnold Kling’s latest, and a complement to World of Ends.
Arnold lists Five Clues for Geeks:
- Intermediaries add value
- Property is not evil
- Computer animation is not a killer application
- Bashing Microsoft does not make you smart
- Markets are not exploitative
Lots to talk about there.
[The Doc Searls Weblog]
VFP Etch A Sketch. Dave Aring’s VFP Etch A Sketch combines the nostalgia of the classic childhood toy with the modern computer. Created using only Microsoft Visual FoxPro, the VFP Etch A Sketch demonstrates just a small portion of this powerful software development tool’s versatility. [FoxCentral.Net]
Boston FUG, March 26th: Application Development and Data over the internet. The Boston Area FoxPro User Group meets the fourth Wednesday of nearly every month at the Microsoft offices in Waltham, MA, 6 PM – 9 PM. Open to the public. For directions and more information, visit the group homepage. Subscribe or read the meeting announcements by clicking here. Wednesday, March 26, 6-7 PM: “Application Development Strategies: Final acceptance criteria, sign off, future enhancements. ” 7 – 9 PM: Guy Pardoe discusses how a VFP application can use a data source located anywhere on the Internet with the use of West-Wind Web Connect. Demonstrations will include the use of VFP and SQL Server backends. [FoxCentral.Net]
In his latest blog, Craig decides that Microsoft is right in enforcing their upgrade rights. I still think it is nonsense. The only people entitled to the upgrade are those who probably don’t need it, since they aren’t supporting previous deployments of FoxPro.
I think the upgrade discount ought to be a reward for loyalty to previous owners. I think the change in EULA is Microsoft’s way of extracting more revenue from their customer base. They’ve done really well at this, keeping up their revenues in a period where nearly all high-tech businesses have reported a downturn. But they are doing it at a cost to their customer base.
Finally, the real problem I have with the EULA is that Microsoft slip-streamed it in, and didn’t alert their customers that there was a license change they needed to be aware of. That was a violation of trust.
I had resolved to purchase a copy this time around, despite the seven MSDN subscriptions, past and present, and the many existing copies of VFP I own, as a means of communicating to Microsoft, in the language that they best understand ($$$) that VFP was an important product I wanted to see continued. I chose to purchase a full version, to avoid any question about my rights to use every version of VFP I need to support my customers. But I am not happy about the damage they are doing, once again, to their loyal VFP customer base.
What a great question! Asked in this c|net news.com article about the new InfoPath program, a tool for integrating Office documents. That Microsoft is considering Office as a “platform” for development is no surprise to us who have used the Developer’s Kit for the last three or four versions. However, Micrososoft has had many tried-and-failed attempts with “Office-as-a-canvas,” non-document-centric interfaces. One of these times they’ll get it right.
Dan Gillmor at Silcon Valley.com: “These deliberate waffles have two effects. They deter other developers who might do such a product for the alternative platform. And that deterrence further reinforces the Windows lock-in.”
Posted at Scripting News:
Last week I got a demo of the new Microsoft Office suite. Poor Jean Paoli [updated link], his hardware wouldn’t cooperate, and every dozen keystrokes it would freeze up. Even so, I got the gist of what it does. I told him in advance not to expect much from me. Been burned by Microsoft too many times. Don’t tell me it’s open, because I expect, fully, that you will break anything I build in the next corner-turn. Anyway, no matter what I said, however begrudgingly, I think people will like and use the XML capabilities of the new suite. However, as a professional, I gotta say, it’s not smart to do so. Microsoft’s track record is really bad. It would be like booking a seat on an airline known for never making its schedule. Interop is not a feature you can sell if you don’t honor past agreements. And Microsoft doesn’t. And it’s not the usual Evil Empire reasons. It’s just corporate arrogance, the kind that plagued Apple in the late 80s and early 90s. Yup, today SOAP means “works with Microsoft” and that makes it no more interesting than COM was.
Dave Winer’s perspective on how things got to be the way they are. Two years ago today: “To this day they think the battle over Java was with Sun, when it was really with the developers. Microsoft says they love developers, they live for developers, and at some level I believe them. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think they have a clue how their actions cripple the developers.” [Scripting News]