Chapter 6: Workstation and Traditional LAN Applications Step-By-Step
Overview
The twenty-first century developer faces developing buzzword -compliant applications, yet customers are still demanding workstation and local area network-based applications as much as ever. This chapter addresses issues in deploying Visual FoxPro data (free tables as well as database-contained tables) in this traditional environment.
Visual FoxPro developers have the flexibility to deploy a variety of applications on a single workstation or local area network (LAN) environment. Applications can be set up on a single computer and used by a single user . Applications can also be installed on a single computer for use by several different users logged in one at a time. Finally, they can be installed on a server computer for use by several different users on computers connected to the LAN (either peer-to-peer, or file-server). These are the traditional environments Visual FoxPro developers have deployed solutions on since the early days of FoxBase and continue to do so today (see Table 1 ).
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Royalty free application runtimes | 2 GB table limit |
| Royalty free native database engine ( fastest file based database on market) | Less scalable |
| Fewer components to deploy and configure | Less secure data |
| Less expensive hardware and back office costs | If on a workstation without LAN access the application is isolated |
| Overall simpler deployments | Tables and indexes are susceptible to corruption |
| ‚ | Solid backups require application to be offline |
As you know, Visual FoxPro has a native database engine that stores and retrieves data faster than any other file-based database product. While DBFs have been disrespected for years with the pressures of client/server database servers, the fact remains that a significant number of business applications use DBFs and new applications based on the native Visual FoxPro data files will be deployed for years to come.
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 232