Shedding Some Light

The VFPX book is finally available for purchase!

Just in case you have been busy, or on vacation, or not on Twitter or Facebook where I posted this earlier, our book “VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer” is available directly from dFPUG in Germany. (this book is not available from Hentzenwerke, so no need to check for it there)

Go to the FoxRockX home page and click the Get VFPX! on the menu. US$49.90 is the introductory price.

From what I have been told, Rainer has been swamped and short-handed so fulfilling the orders is slower than most people expect. Please be patient. I think you will find it has been worth the wait.

From the back of the book is something we hope sounds like a future review on Amazon.com:

This book is terrific! I had no idea VFPX was this extensive. This book documents 35 VFPX projects in 600 pages. It is the encyclopedia of VFPX projects for Visual FoxPro developers written by the leading VFPX authorities in our community. The authors share their real world experience, which saves you time and provides a jumpstart on using the different tools and components. At first glance, VFPX can be a bit daunting. This book is organized so you can select any VFPX project you want to know more about and read about it in a single chapter (except for a few projects that are so big, a single chapter wasn’t sufficient). By the time you finish the chapter, you know how to install the tool or component, what it does, and all the functionality it provides. The authors share the benefits and the shortcomings in great detail. This book saves you time, and helps you improve your Visual FoxPro development experience and the way your applications work for your customers. Get it today!

While I am slightly biased, I think this may be the single most important book on Visual FoxPro since “Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 7.0″

Special thanks to my fellow authors and partners Doug Hennig, Jim Nelson, Eric Selje, and Tamar E. Granor. It was a pleasure working with everyone on this massive project.

For the last seven years Rainer Becker has invited me to Germany to present sessions at the German DevCon. While in Germany, for at least the last four years he has asked me to write a book on the open source projects found in VFPX on CodePlex. Ever year I have told him it was a crazy idea and flat out rejected his request. Mostly I rejected it for fear my wife will strangle me in my sleep one night. But the biggest reason is simple: the VFPX projects are too fluid. There is a saying: it is like nailing jello to a wall. Hard to do and messy.

I have a lot of experience writing about VFPX projects. Almost every issue of FoxRock has an article on one of the VFPX projects. Almost every article is slightly obsolete before it gets in the hands of the readers 30 days later. I have written numerous white papers for conferences and user group presentations. I end up tweaking them to the very last minute, and have been known to change presentations the day of the presentation to keep up. More than a two dozen project managers are ensuring this happens.

Last November Rainer asked again. As Doug Hennig as my witness, I said no. Rainer pushed harder this time. And as Doug as my witness, I said I would think about it. I immediately roped Doug into helping. It was a deal breaker if he said no. During the conference Doug and I brainstormed who we could get to help, what person might write about what projects, and what existing materials we could leverage. Before getting on the plane home not only had we agreed to try to do this, but we sort of had a plan on how it could be done. Crazy. After we returned to North America I called the people we wanted on the team and each of them bought in. No more deal breakers left.

Secretly, behind the scenes Doug, Jim Nelson, Eric Selje, Tamar Granor and I, with the help of many of the VFPX project managers have been assembling what is turning out to be a fantastic book. Far exceeding my expectations. Every project on VFPX is covered in detail for the latest and greatest of each project. The authors are tech editing each others work, fact checking, testing out the samples, and ensuring you can read a chapter, understand the benefits of using, and get a big head putting the tool or component to use. Some of us are also learning Mercurial too as we use a repository for the book. Additionally, Tamar is also schooling me on proper English, again. It has not been easy, but doing something great never is easy.

The writing is getting close to being done. When I say close, I mean, as soon as I am done writing it will be done. Some traditions have to be maintained. This is the seventh book I have collaborated on, and I have always been the last one to finish.

Rainer is bold, and a little bit crazy to be putting out another Visual FoxPro related book in 2012. He is obviously passionate when it comes to the Fox Community. This mix turns out to be a good one because, as crazy an idea this book is, it is going to help a lot of people. At least we hope it will.

The book is named VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer and will be available sometime before the fall Fox conferences (Southwest Fox and German DevCon). It is a book that needs to be in the library of every Visual FoxPro developer. Seriously. No kidding. We hope you like it.

You might be wondering of there ever will be a fresh book written on Visual FoxPro?

The answer is yes! Making Sense of Sedna and SP2 is a terrific book co-written by Tamar E. Granor, Doug Hennig, Toni Feltman, Cathy Pountney, Rick Schummer, Bo Durban. This book is the the definitive coverage of all the new features added to Visual FoxPro 9 via the Sedna add-ons and the Service Pack 2 release (including the very important and latest hotfixes). I worked closely with Microsoft to test many of the components of Sedna and I still learned a lot by writing my chapters and reading the ones from the other authors. There is a lot of great information and insight packed into the 242 pages.

Special thanks to Rainer Becker who has determination to push for new Visual FoxPro books. dFPUG is simultaneously releasing Making Sense of Sedna and SP2 in English and German.

All the details for the book are on the Hentzenwerke Publishing Web site.

You can get the electronic version of the book immediately after you order it. Hentzenwerke Publishing is putting together a special print run for the book. The printed edition is available in July so get your order in today!