Shedding Some Light

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.

Solstice Special – beat the rush to registration

Geek Gatherings is adding an incentive to get you to register early. In addition to all the perks you get when registering before July 1st (a $125 discount, a free pre-conference or post-conference session, and a chance for a $150 scholarship or Stonefield Query SDK), one person who registers before June 21st wins a tablet!

The winner will select one of the following:

• iPad 2 with 16GB of memory (value of $399)
• Kindle Fire (value of $199)
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (value of $399)

Winner is selected on July 3, 2012 from the list of people registered before June 21st.

http://swfox.net/register.aspx

My copy of MSDN Magazine arrived in today’s mail. As I do when it arrives, I browse through the pages looking for interesting articles to read. Normally what I read is interesting information about things in .NET that people on my team throw around during team gatherings, and I see presented at user groups and conferences.

But today I read two thought provoking articles discussing Visual Basic 6, which was released in 1998 and off Microsoft’s extended support in 2008. Not exactly what I would call cutting edge material.

• Don’t Get Me Started, by David S Platt
• Old Soldiers Never Die, editorial by Michael Desmond

The articles discuss how in January Microsoft extended “It Just Works” compatibility and support of VB6 applications through the full lifetime of Windows 8. This means the VB6 core runtimes are getting 5 more years of mainstream support followed with 5 more years of extended support into 2022 (a total of 10 years of Windows 8). Note: the VB6 IDE is not supported, just the runtimes. Still, this has an super important impact on VB6 developers who can talk to their customers and assure them that Microsoft is backing the investment in applications their customers have come to depend on. Platt even speculates: “I’ll bet you a beer that Microsoft has to extend Visual Basic 6 support through Windows 9 and 10.”

Here is a link for all the details on “It Just Works” for Visual Basic 6.

So let’s look at a simple timeline comparison here:

• The last release of VB6 was in 1998, and extended support ended in 2008.
• The last release of VFP 9 SP2 was October 2007, and extended support goes through January 2015.

The theme of the two articles is that VB6 apps continue to thrive in the business world, and in governments, and they are likely to thrive for a long time to come. Sounds familiar. Visual FoxPro applications are doing the same in both sectors, and in non-profits. Not every business can just afford to stop and rewrite their mission critical apps. Some applications do not support a business model for a rewrite. Just because Microsoft decides they no longer support development platforms and runtimes does not mean business does not continue as is.

One thing that made me chuckle is in Desmond’s article as he cites Platt, “Platt says he sees “pockets” of support on the Internet for Borland Delphi, Microsoft FoxPro, and Sybase PowerBuilder.” Pockets. Funny.

I want to be clear on one point. I don’t think this is important from the technical side of things as the testing I have done is not revealing any issues on Windows 8. Visual FoxPro applications I have tested are working fine on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview release from earlier this year. I have not tested on the Windows 8 Release Preview released this week. This is purely a marketing issue so Visual FoxPro developers can reassure their customers that Microsoft cares about their software, AND allows them to upgrade to Windows 8 if they choose to do so. Assurance equals new revenue for Microsoft. It also might help stem the tide of choosing alternative non-Microsoft platforms when it comes to the v.Next rewrite of the existing business software.

So Microsoft, I ask – How do the Visual FoxPro runtimes get “It Just Works” support extended through the life of Windows 8? I am certain this would be helpful to the customers who have come to depend on their software just as much as the software created in VB6, and Visual FoxPro has been supported longer.

Or am I wrong?

A couple of announcements about our fall conferences:

• First, registration is now open for both Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++. Registrations have been already been pouring in, which is great news.
• Second, speakers and sessions for Southwest Xbase++ are now available.

Remember, if you register for one conference, you’re free to attend sessions in the other conference as well: it’s BOGO (buy one, get one free). There are some sessions specifically intended for VFP developers, including Project PolarFox: State of the Union and Xbase++ 2.0 from a VFP Developer’s Perspective. Also, some of the Southwest Fox session will appeal to Xbase++ developers, such as Advanced Topics in Mercurial: Taking it to the Next Level, jQuery 101, and Office Automation Without Office.

I personally hope you’ll head right over to the brand new online registration form developed by my team at White Light Computing. You’ll receive an email when you submit your registration confirming we received it. You’ll get a confirmation message with a paid invoice as your receipt after we process the payment.

I also want to make a brief plea to you as well. We encourage you to register as soon as possible. Our final commitment to the conference center is due by July 2. In order to confirm that commitment, we must have a sufficient number of people registered by then to ensure that the conference is financially sound. So please register soon and spread the word about Southwest Fox to all the Visual FoxPro developers you know, and likewise for the Southwest Xbase++ conference.

Thanks for the continued support!

Only 152 days until we gather in Gilbert!

Today is one of those big days here at Geek Gatherings because we officially announce the speakers and sessions for Southwest Fox 2012. All the details can be found on the Speakers page.

We’re glad to welcome back a couple of speakers who haven’t been to Southwest Fox in a long time: Rod Paddock and Kevin McNeish. And of course Cathy Knight, Kevin Cully, and Rick Strahl, who didn’t speak at the conference last year. Returning from last year are Menachem Bazian, Steve Bodnar, Rick Borup, Tamar Granor, Doug Hennig, Rick Schummer, Eric Selje, Tuvia Vinitsky, and Christof Wollenhaupt.

We have a terrific line up of topics that cover a variety of Visual FoxPro, Web, and other technologies too. I believe there is something for everyone. I think our pre-conference sessions are going to interest a lot of developers too.

Stay tuned for announcements about the Southwest Xbase++ 2012 speakers and sessions AND the roll out of the new online registration site we are working on.

I hope to see everyone in October. Only 170 days until we gather in Gilbert!

Each year I look for a new conference to attend. I do this for a couple of reasons. First is to experience a different group of topics and speakers. Second is to look for ideas that are different from the way we put on conferences. This year I decided on KalamazooX. I picked it based on buzz I heard on Twitter the past couple of years. I was not disappointed.

The conference is on “soft skill” topics, not hard technical topics you find at most software conferences. It is very unique in this regard. It is a single-day conference with ten 30-minute sessions with 5 minute breaks in between. I registered for the conference before even knowing the speakers and the topics, purely based on the reputation of the organizers and the good experiences past attendees talked about.

KalamazooX is inexpensive. I registered as an early-bird for $20 (normally $25 for professionals and $15 for students). Add to that a hotel night for $100, a tank of gas for $45, and a couple of meals around $40. Total expenses around $200. I probably could have driven out in the morning and returned the same day, but I wanted to relax a bit so Therese and I went out Friday afternoon.

I arrived a little after 8:00am for registration and found a seat in the back. Nice deep tables and lots of room between attendees. The room was good except for the morning sunlight on the screen which washed out many of the speaker’s slides in the first half of the day. Fruit and continental breakfast style food in the morning, and various beverages available all day. Conference also included a boxed lunch for everyone.

The speakers were good, topics were good, food was good, room was good, and networking/discussions were good. After the conference I noted to the lead organizer that KalamazooX had the same effect on me as the Business of Software (BoS) conference at a fraction of the cost. I walk away with ideas and thoughts I might not have considered without listening to the speakers. I was surprised at the comparison.

If you are interested in the Twitter stream, take a little time to read posts using the conference hashtag  #KalX12.

The thing I noticed throughout the day and probably the reason people kept tweeting it was one good session after another: speakers were prepared, well prepared.

Here are some thoughts on the best-of-the-best sessions (all five out of five stars):

• Best session of the day content-wise was Joe O’Brien’s People Patterns. Smooth speaker who packed my notes. Best idea from this session is the concept of a “Conversation Rolodex”, which means you prepare discussion topics so you do not go down the route of “so how about them Red Wings…”  This is one thing that seriously expands the conference after-hours sessions and likely has the biggest return on investment for a conference attendee. It works in business as well with your customers. I also liked his point about “Assume the positive”, which really rings home as business owners often worry about what happens if things go wrong. Thinking and believing good things result from your decision making helps drive success.
• Best  session of the day to listen to was Justin Searls’ The Mythical Team-Month. Noticeably the most nervous speaker, but his ideas and slides flowed well. All common sense and reaffirming concepts. He was a high energy speaker. His point about there not being any place to hide in small teams is something I really believe in as it forces no-fat productivity. I am glad the organizers went with their gut and picked this one.
• Best surprise session of the day was Suzan Bond’s Intuition. Past the basic business skills, successful business owners rely on their gut and intuition, sprinkled in with a little luck. Most people avoid talking about this. My favorite point: Good decisions get better, bad decisions get worse. This is so true. I have lived through both. This session had to be the softest of the “soft skills” presented and was the session I looked forward to the most before the conference started. Suzan hit home a couple of points that made my day.
• Best stab in the neck came during Jeff Blankenburg’s session How to Learn session. His point about not having enough time to learn everything you want or need to learn is an excuse. Watch a little less TV, sleep a little less, just do what it takes to learn. Time is the thing I cannot buy or create more of, and have always struggled on balance and optimizing my use of time. But he was right, I need to use time better for learning. I disagree with his point on not reading books as did several speakers who followed him, but I know people learn differently. I wish he would have had more concrete examples, but as I learned more and more through the day, it was a day more about inspiration than hard take-aways.
• And Alan Stevens did not push me over the edge once during his Making a Difference talk. Shocking. Although he did push at least one other person’s buttons on a religious argument so his session was deemed a success.  {g}

Strangely, a couple of the sessions actually spawned ideas for the approach I am going to take for my sessions at Southwest Fox and German DevCon later this year. I was not expecting that to happen.

One thing to note, from the get go, each of the speakers were fairly liberal with the use of swearing. If this bothers you the day probably would have been a bit frustrating. Some of it was humorous, and some of it was unnecessary. It definitely did not add to the conference experience.

As is normal for any conference I attend, I added a book to my Kindle and a couple more to the wish list. You are welcome Amazon. If you are interested, the book I added is The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson, Ph.D.

I wondered how the 30-minute sessions were going to work. Most conference sessions are 60-75 minute. For a technical topic that seems to work. Someone proposed making some of the session slots for our conference to include some two 30-minute sessions with a 15 minute break inside a normal 75-minute slot. I am skeptical on how well this might work, but plan to give it more thought based on how well these sessions worked at KalamazooX. Shorter sessions kept my attention better. What I am not sure of is if this is better for the soft skill or business topics, or if technical topics can benefit from this format too.

I expect to be back for KalamazooX 2013 and return as a sponsor too. A terrific way to spend my Saturday.

The Ceil Silver Ambassador Fund brings a developer to the Southwest Fox conference in the United States as an ambassador for the developers in his or her country. This gives the recipient the opportunity to meet and share experiences with developers attending Southwest Fox and gives other attendees the opportunity to learn about VFP development in the recipient’s country. For more information on the Ambassador Fund or to learn how to contribute to it, please see http://www.swfox.net/ambassador.aspx.

The Ambassador selection committee consists of Southwest Fox organizers Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig, former Ambassadors Emerson Santon Reed, Cesar Chalom, Bernard Bout, and Borislav Borissov, and VFP community members Christof Wollenhaupt and Rick Bean.

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2012 recipient. To nominate someone you think is deserving to be selected, please email their name and a brief list of their contributions to the VFP community to ambassadorfund@swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than April 30, 2012.

The FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award honors those individuals who have contributed a great deal to the FoxPro community over the years. See the Visual FoxPro Wiki topic for previous award recipients. These recipients wish to continue the award and have created a committee to select a recipient for 2012. The committee consists of all 11 living previous recipients, Alan Griver (yag) of EC:Wise (formerly of Microsoft), and one person from the FoxPro community.

If you wish to be considered for inclusion on the committee, please email Doug Hennig (dhennig@stonefield.com) by April 30, 2012. The existing committee will select the community member and announce their selection in early May. The committee will then issue a call for nominations for the 2012 recipient and will make their selection from the nominees.