Comment by mamcx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mamcx | Hacker News Reader

This is where FoxPro/dbase was the solution. I work with that for some years and none on the current tech match that.

Fox was the best part of Acces (the GUI builder, but way better) + a capable embedded database engine + way better language than anything else for businesses apps.

This could sound weird, but even python is to hard in contrast with fox. Also, being more database focused, interactive and with decent GUI abilities was a match in heaven.

Fox is still pervasive in my country in a lot of simple apps/POS systems. Is the perfect match (you can even provide custom report, form building, etc to end user using exactly the same tools that fox give us). Not was uncommon that some folks at that small companies learn a bit of fox to customize their apps.

My current dream is try to build something like this, and salivate what will happens if also put spreadsheet there with true relational support. Is a pipe dream, because this require a dedicated team and funding, and this kind of "unsexy" tool not fly anywhere.

Early in my IT career, I did a lot of MS Access development, and MS Access gave me a huge advantage (at the start) of the company my cofounders and I started and sold. Although it certainly had it's limitations, MS Access did meet a lot of needs for SMBs, much as how you describe FoxPro did/does.

If you want something similar with respect to ease of development and deployment, check out Oracle Application Express, or APEX, which comes with the database as a no-cost option. A good quick summary of APEX can be found here: https://insum.ca/about-apex/ (Disclaimer - I work with Insum.)

Most on HN seem to really dislike Oracle, which is not completely unwarranted. However, a framework like APEX can enable you to stand up CRUD apps very quickly, and Oracle has a free version of the database (Oracle XE, which includes APEX), that will easily meet the needs of many SMBs. I've gone through a few different "Build an X clone" type tutorials online to learn both python and JavaScript frameworks, and in each case, building the same thing with Oracle APEX takes a much less time, and is way easier given the declarative interface.

APEX is not for everyone and won't solve all your problems, but for those looking to modernize MS Access and FoxPro apps, it's worth checking out.

Have you used LibreOffice's equivalent, Base?

No, but will look into it. I'm guessing it's not web/browser based?

Correct.

"old school" computer based DB and front end.

Think of it as the Open Source Access DB.

Reporting back, I started setting up a Base database for invoices, customers and products/services. It wasn't too bad to work with and you do get the power of SQL underneath. I think it generates a web interface so it's basically CRUD apps without writing any code, just point and click hooking up of components with fields and tables.

Oh yeah, my non-programmer non-scientific dad and the 12 years old me managed to do everything he needed with dBase III + (plus occasionally Works or something like that, I can't remember). Most of the time, dBase was on.

It was easy to build a database, to build interfaces, to configure views and reports, print listings and labels.

The resulting interface was also easy and fast to use, moreover there was no distraction. So not only it did the job, but it was very efficient at it: I mean, one could say "does the job" of anything like a chisel + stone tablet, but in this case it was close to optimal efficiency.

This is how I think of FileMaker Pro. It seems like a great "next step" past Excel for businesses that don't have budget/time for custom programming.

Also, what about SharePoint? I haven't used it, but my impression is that this is what it's for. Is that mistaken?

Stay away from SharePoint. It sucks in every dimension you may want to use it.

Thumbs up for FileMaker though.

FileMaker is actually a very capable system, but there are some major drawbacks:

- I absolutely hate their approach to layout / styling / frontend - I wish they'd embrace web technologies like plain css amd html, which they do under the hood but don't really expose to the user / developer.

- there are countless performance issues, like their record-centric approach to showing data. Try displaying a list view that features an attribute from a related table - a very common requirement, yet you can't really scroll that list any more since FileMaker tries to lazily load related data on demand.

- FileMaker has a hard time talking to other services. You can export in multiple formats like csv and excel, however I had to come up with a very complicated approach in order to talk to and sync data with web APIs. Native JSON support in FileMaker would help a lot to make it easier but it's only possible with custom functions.

Back in 1987 or so, I started developing applications for my customers using Clarion, which came out about the same time, and was a competitor to FoxPro (which I also liked).

Clarion is still around to this day, and I STILL write applications for my Win32 customers using it - nothing comes close, and the thing just works. I have customers using solutions I wrote 20 years ago still working away on the applications that I have almost completely forgotten about.

Yep, a lot of businesses rely on Excel until a certain point and then they try and find a product that fits them or try custom software dev that amounts to "convert this bunch of crazy Excel sheets into a web/desktop interface".

When something like Access (or LibreOffice Base) can be used instead to fill in the gap.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com