Yup, Visual Foxpro was fast as hell, although IMO the speed topped out around version 3. And not just fast on rinky-dink tables, as long as they were reasonably indexed. Stick the server component of a c/s solution on the same server as where the data resides, and performance was great for tables having over 1M records. It was a good on the "back end" of web servers, for example.
More than speed though, I enjoyed the data-centric programming language. It was a joy to use and a bunch of functionality could be smashed into just a few lines of code. I miss it.
I think the real reason for it's demise is that it was cutting into the per-seat profits of SQL Server. Throw a VFP application on a file server and it was available to a bunch of users for free. We still use a server-based app where I work that is run several thousand times per month, trouble-free.
I thought GNUCash had decent features, and happily used it for almost a year. Then an upgrade to either GNUCash or Mandrake (can't remember which now) caused it to crash every time I tried to print something. Having invoices to print monthly, this was a show-stopper, so I switched over to SQL-Ledger.
SQL-Ledger does everything I need and more, although I'm not crazy about the user interface, which isn't at all intuitive to me (for example, what's the difference between the "Update", "Save", and "Post" buttons? What's the difference between links labelled "Receipt" and "Receipts"? "Payment" and "Payments"? I can never remember). I have a cheat sheet near my computer with instructions on what works because I'm too cheap to pay the $190 for the reference manual. Also, I would have been screwed after my upgrade from FC4 to FC5 because the PostgreSQL format changed so SQL-Ledger no longer ran, but my nightly data dumps and a how-to I found on the Internet rescued me.
USB storage devices aren't allowed at the federal government facility where I work. The management thinks it's too easy to steal information using them. Sad but true: floppys, even removable hard disks are OK, but not USB keychains! Also forbidden are handheld organizers and anything wireless, including cell phones. Technology is passing me by...
I just ordered a computer from one of the many internet sites (micropro.com) that lets you modify the computer's configuration. I found that some type of MS Windows was a required purchase if my computer had a hard disk, so I configured it diskless. Then I added the hard disk I wanted as a separate item in my shopping cart. No MS tax with little effort.
For the last couple of months, Google has posted web browser usage stats, as well as OS usage. That's about as unbiased as you can get. Google Zeitgest.
I too recommend CS-RCS. I've been using it for over a year. It's easy to use, integrates with Windows Explorer (and HomeSite!), and yes, you can do diffs on MS Word files. A one-user version is free if you'd like to evaluate it.
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Yup, Visual Foxpro was fast as hell, although IMO the speed topped out around version 3. And not just fast on rinky-dink tables, as long as they were reasonably indexed. Stick the server component of a c/s solution on the same server as where the data resides, and performance was great for tables having over 1M records. It was a good on the "back end" of web servers, for example.
More than speed though, I enjoyed the data-centric programming language. It was a joy to use and a bunch of functionality could be smashed into just a few lines of code. I miss it.
I think the real reason for it's demise is that it was cutting into the per-seat profits of SQL Server. Throw a VFP application on a file server and it was available to a bunch of users for free. We still use a server-based app where I work that is run several thousand times per month, trouble-free.
I thought GNUCash had decent features, and happily used it for almost a year. Then an upgrade to either GNUCash or Mandrake (can't remember which now) caused it to crash every time I tried to print something. Having invoices to print monthly, this was a show-stopper, so I switched over to SQL-Ledger.
SQL-Ledger does everything I need and more, although I'm not crazy about the user interface, which isn't at all intuitive to me (for example, what's the difference between the "Update", "Save", and "Post" buttons? What's the difference between links labelled "Receipt" and "Receipts"? "Payment" and "Payments"? I can never remember). I have a cheat sheet near my computer with instructions on what works because I'm too cheap to pay the $190 for the reference manual. Also, I would have been screwed after my upgrade from FC4 to FC5 because the PostgreSQL format changed so SQL-Ledger no longer ran, but my nightly data dumps and a how-to I found on the Internet rescued me.
USB storage devices aren't allowed at the federal government facility where I work. The management thinks it's too easy to steal information using them. Sad but true: floppys, even removable hard disks are OK, but not USB keychains! Also forbidden are handheld organizers and anything wireless, including cell phones. Technology is passing me by...
I just ordered a computer from one of the many internet sites (micropro.com) that lets you modify the computer's configuration. I found that some type of MS Windows was a required purchase if my computer had a hard disk, so I configured it diskless. Then I added the hard disk I wanted as a separate item in my shopping cart. No MS tax with little effort.
For the last couple of months, Google has posted web browser usage stats, as well as OS usage. That's about as unbiased as you can get. Google Zeitgest.
I too recommend CS-RCS. I've been using it for over a year. It's easy to use, integrates with Windows Explorer (and HomeSite!), and yes, you can do diffs on MS Word files. A one-user version is free if you'd like to evaluate it.