Technology Backgound

The following paragraphs are taken from the Microsoft web site, and from leading books on these technologies.

Visual FoxPro

SQL Server

Visual Basic

Visual Studio Overview

Steve Ballmer on the Future of Visual FoxPro

Steve Ballmer outlines the new features of the latest version of Visual FoxPro, the importance of the FoxPro developer community, and the future of Visual FoxPro at Microsoft. He notes that Visual FoxPro 7.0 is fully compatible with .NET-based XML Web services, and he discusses Microsoft's commitment to improving Visual FoxPro and continuing to serve the needs of FoxPro developers worldwide. Read More

Visual FoxPro 7.0 Datasheet

Microsoft Visual FoxPro version 7.0 is an extremely powerful tool for quickly building database applications and components. Its data-centric, object-oriented language offers developers a robust tool set for building database applications—for the desktop, as a client/server solution, or on the Web—by using components and XML Web services.

Powerful Data-Handling Capabilities

Visual FoxPro 7.0 provides developers with the necessary tools to manage data—whether they are organizing tables of information and running queries, creating an integrated relational database management system (DBMS), or programming a fully developed data management application for end users.

Fast, Powerful Data Engine

• Rushmore Query Optimization Technology - Run queries of large FoxPro data files in sub-second times.
  
• Local Cursor Engine - Easily manipulate data interactively and programmatically.
  
• Database Container - Create persistent relationships between tables, stored procedures, events, triggers, rules, and default values.
  
• Local and Remote Views - Build applications based on queries that return filtered Visual FoxPro or Microsoft SQL Server™ data for increased performance. Take remote data offline for added power.
  
• Database Events - Control user actions with code that executes when a database is opened, closed, or modified.
  

Data-Centric Language

• Built-in Batch-Processing Capabilities - Quickly and directly manipulate large amounts of data in corporate transaction-processing solutions.
  
• Integrated SQL Support - Manipulate large amounts of data by using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements.
  

Integration of Data with Other Applications

• Integrated XML Language Support - Convert between Visual FoxPro cursors and XML text.
  
• OLE DB Provider - Provide clients who do not use Visual FoxPro with easy access to Visual FoxPro data.
  
• SQL Server Upsizing Wizard - Easily migrate Visual FoxPro data to SQL Server databases.
  

RAD Tools for Maximum Productivity

Visual FoxPro provides rapid application development (RAD) features that enable developers to build complex database applications visually, with minimal effort.

Easy-to-Use Visual Design Tools

• True Event-Driven Model - Fully access standard Microsoft Windows® events—for example, mouse movements that enable drag-and-drop operations.
  
• Project Manager - Organize and manage all files in a project.
  
• Form Designer and Report Designer - Visually create forms and reports by using drag-and-drop operations to move controls bound to data.
  
• Visual Class Designer - Visually create classes of reusable forms and controls.
  
• Builders - Reduce development time with tools that simplify the editing of visual control common properties at design time.
  
• Wizards - Quickly step through common application development tasks, such as the creation of forms, queries, and reports. Use the Application Wizard to create a complete application quickly.
  

Object-Oriented Programming

• Visual and Non-Visual Inheritance - Create class libraries of reusable code, forms, and controls.
  
• Class Browser and Component Gallery - Manage class libraries and other common application components with easy-to-use visual tools.
  
• Visual FoxPro Foundation Classes - Choose from more than 100 prebuilt, reusable classes that provide common functionality, and add them to applications easily.
  
• Object-Oriented Application Framework - Build applications by using an object-oriented application framework, which consists of a generic set of classes that form the core of an application.
  

Powerful Development Environment

• Command Window - Interact directly with the integrated development environment (IDE) and your applications during run time.
  
• Document View Window - View and quickly navigate to source procedures, functions, and methods.
  
• Advanced Code Editor - Reduce coding time with features that display color-coded syntax, block indent, comments, bookmarks, and shortcuts.
  
• Microsoft IntelliSense® Technology - Decrease coding time by using powerful, extensible language assistance as you type.
  
• Microsoft Visual SourceSafe® Integration - Coordinate the efforts of individual users and development teams, and extend control over the versioning process.
  
• Full-Featured Debugger - Increase productivity with event tracking, coverage logging, and breakpoint support.
  
• Coverage Profiler - Test applications by checking which lines of code are being executed ("coverage") and perform "profiling" to determine bottlenecks in code.
  

Flexibility to Build All Types of Database Solutions

Visual FoxPro gives developers the ability to build database applications of various sizes and to build and consume COM components and XML Web services.

Database Solutions of Various Sizes

• Database Applications - Get the tools developers need to manage data—from organizing tables of information and running queries and reports to building full-featured database applications for end users.
  
• Built-in Client/Server Capabilities - Combine the power and graphical user interface of Visual FoxPro with the speed, storage, and security of SQL Server.
  
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) - Build desktop and shared solutions that are fully compatible with SQL Server 2000, and migrate them directly to SQL Server.
  
• Interoperate with Other Applications - Programmatically control other applications, including Microsoft Office.
  
• Microsoft Active Accessibility® - Make your applications accessible to third-party tools, such as screen readers, voice recognition devices, and automated test harnesses.
  
• Deployment Tools - Use the included InstallShield Express to easily deploy your Visual FoxPro applications.
  

Components and XML Web Services

• Visual FoxPro Data and the Web - Use Visual FoxPro and Internet Information Services (IIS) in Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 or later to build high-performance, database-driven Web applications.
  
• COM Components - Build middle-tier business objects that can interoperate easily with other applications, including Office, Microsoft Visual Studio®, and Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.
  
• Support for COM+ Services - Create components for highly scalable n-tier distributed transaction applications by using COM+ Services, such as COM+ Events, Queued Components, and Message Queuing.
  
• XML Web Services - Publish and subscribe to SOAP–based XML Web services anywhere on the Internet.

Visual FoxPro has full object-oriented class design capabilities including inheritance, subclassing, encapsulation, and polymorphism. Reusable class libraries of both visual and nonvisual (code) classes can be built, dramatically reducing development time.

Visual FoxPro remote views use ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) to talk to SQL databases, making Visual FoxPro an excellent tool for building client/server applications because there is no shift in approach when moving from a file server-based application to a client/server-based application. Developers can also use ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to talk to both relational and non-relational data via OLE DB.

Developers can use Visual FoxPro to create custom COM (Component Object Model) components. Developers can build data-intensive middle-tier business objects that can be used and reused easily by other applications, including Microsoft Office and the other tools in Visual Studio™. In addition, components can be used to create Visual FoxPro-based Internet database applications.

Why would I build a component in Visual FoxPro when I can build the same component in Visual Basic®, Visual C++®, or Visual J++™?

Visual FoxPro components are extremely fast, thanks to the data-centric language of Visual FoxPro and its ability to retrieve and manipulate data very quickly. Further, Visual FoxPro can build character strings very swiftly. A Visual FoxPro component that works with data and returns HTML will therefore typically be very fast.

Visual FoxPro also has object-oriented programming capabilities, including inheritance. This provides a high degree of reusability across applications. A Visual FoxPro developer could create a set of classes that includes the core functionality of a Web database component. That code would not need to be rewritten each time a component was needed in a Web application. The developer could merely create a component that inherits the base functionality and then add to it application-specific code.

Finally, building COM components in Visual FoxPro 7.0 is an excellent way to reuse existing code. Code that is already written and tested can be built into a component, rather than being recreated in another language.

Microsoft® SQL Server Technical Overview

Product Overview

Business today demands a different kind of database solution. Performance, scalability, and reliability are essential, and time to market is critical. Beyond these core enterprise qualities, SQL Server 2000 provides agility to your data management and analysis, allowing your organization to adapt quickly and gracefully to derive competitive advantage in a fast-changing environment. From a data management and analysis perspective, it is critical to turn raw data into business intelligence and take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the Web. A complete database and data analysis package, SQL Server 2000 opens the door to the rapid development of a new generation of enterprise-class business applications that can give your company a critical competitive advantage. The record-holder of important benchmark awards for scalability and speed, SQL Server 2000 is a fully Web-enabled database product, providing core support for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the ability to query across the Internet and beyond the firewall.

Fully Web-Enabled

SQL Server 2000 provides extensive database programming capabilities built on Web standards. Rich XML and Internet standard support give you the ability to store and retrieve data in XML format easily with built-in stored procedures. You can also use XML updategrams to insert, update and delete data easily.

• Easy access to data through the Web. With SQL Server 2000, you can use HTTP to send queries to the database, perform full-text search on documents stored in database, and run queries over the Web with natural language.
• Powerful, flexible Web-based analysis. SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services capabilities are extended to the Internet. You can access and manipulate cube data by means of a Web browser.
  

Highly Scalable and Reliable

Achieve unparalleled scalability and reliability with SQL Server 2000. With scale up and scale out capabilities, SQL Server meets the needs of demanding ecommerce and enterprise applications.

• Scale up. SQL Server 2000 takes advantage of symmetrical multiprocessor (SMP) systems. SQL Server Enterprise Edition can use up to 32 processors and 64 GB of RAM.
  
• Scale out. Scale out distributes the database and data load across servers.
  
• Availability. SQL Server 2000 achieves maximum availability through enhanced failover clustering, log shipping, and new backup strategies.

Fastest Time-to-Market

SQL Server 2000 is the data management and analysis backbone of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers. SQL Server 2000 includes tools to speed development from concept to final delivery.

• Integrated and extensible analysis services. With SQL Server 2000, you can build end-to-end analysis solutions with integrated tools to create value from data. Additionally, you can automatically drive business processes based on analysis results and flexibly retrieve custom result sets from the most complex calculations.
  
• Quick development, debugging, and data transformation. SQL Server 2000 features the ability to interactively tune and debug queries, quickly move and transform data from any source, and define and use functions as if they were built in to Transact-SQL. You can visually design and code database applications from any Visual Studio tool.
  
• Simplified management and tuning. With SQL Server 2000, it is easy to manage databases centrally alongside all enterprise resources. Stay online while easily moving and copying databases across computers or between instances.
  

For More Information
Read more about SQL Server 2000 as a solution for your Enterprise Data Management needs.

Product Highlights

Microsoft Visual Basic development system is the most productive tool for creating fast business solutions for Windows and the Web. A comprehensive, rapid application development environment helps developers quickly create and deploy client/server applications, plus easily program for the Internet using familiar Visual Basic programming tools and techniques.

Get ready for Windows 2000.

• Get a head start with the Windows 2000 Readiness Kit, including essential developer resources and training.
  
• Simplify programming with COM+, and build distributed applications with built-in load balancing, transaction support, message queuing, object pooling, security, and integrated component management services.
  
• Build highly reliable, self-repairing applications using the new Visual Studio® Installer.
  
• Develop a breadth of solutions, from full data warehouses using Microsoft SQL Server™ 7.0 to freely redistributable mobile database applications using the new SQL Server–compatible Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE).
  
• Take advantage of the new Windows 2000 Web Services, Active Directory™ Service, Core Services, Microsoft Management Console, and much more.

Tap into productivity and performance.

• Program with the world’s most popular programming language to quickly create high-performance applications and components in a RAD environment.
  
• Build fast, native-code applications and components that use the same world-class compiler technology as in the Microsoft Visual C++® development system. Applications can be optimized for speed and size and in many other ways to improve performance even more.
  
• Make your applications and components thread-safe without the rigors of manual thread management.
  
• Increase development speed and productivity with IntelliSense® Technology. On-the-fly syntax and statement completion using features such as Complete Word, Quick Info, and DataTips®.
  
• Easily create a broad range of reusable COM-based components, including ActiveX® Controls as well as middle-tier and server-side components.
  
• Use your Visual Basic skills in the Microsoft Office suite and in third-party applications that license Microsoft Visual Basic Applications Edition.

Easily create data-centric applications.

• Deploy the freely redistributable Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) as part of your application and get full compatibility with larger SQL Server databases.
  
• Quickly develop rich data forms, or use the new integrated Report Writer to develop sophisticated, hierarchical reports, all with drag-and-drop ease.
  
• Create reusable data access components using the new Data Environment for use across multiple projects, in other development tools, or on the Web that automatically take advantage of data binding.
  
• Build a wide variety of applications for the mobile user. Write client/server applications that work with databases whether or not they are connected to a LAN or to the Web. Visual Basic 6.0 now supports the Microsoft universal data access architecture with ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) version 2.0.
  
• Achieve a new level of productivity when working with hierarchical data with the enhanced FlexGrid control. Easily display master-detail data in a way that allows you to expand, collapse, hide, or show information.
  

Increase efficiency with integrated Visual Database Tools.

• Use the comprehensive, newly integrated Visual Database Tools to perform your most common database activities without leaving Visual Basic.
  
• View tables, modify data, and create SQL queries within the development environment for any ODBC- or OLE DB-compliant database.
  
• Use the fully integrated database designer to visually design and modify live database schemas and other objects for Microsoft SQL Server 6.5+ and Oracle 7.3.3+ databases.
  

Start building Internet applications today.

• Use the experience you've gained programming Windows-based applications in a RAD environment to move your code and applications to the Web.
  
• Build Web applications and components running on Microsoft Internet Information Server that are accessible from any browser on any platform.
  
• Deploy Internet applications and components quickly and easily using the Package and Deployment wizard.
  
• Build better solutions using the Windows NT® Option Pack. Microsoft Transaction Server 2.0, Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0, and Microsoft Message Queue Server let you build sophisticated, multiuser business applications for the Web, a LAN, or both.
  
• Use Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Developer Edition, a scalable, high-performance database management system for Windows NT-based systems, to prototype and test enterprise applications.
  
• Secure your source code using Microsoft Visual SourceSafe®. Visual SourceSafe provides an easy-to-use, secure, project-oriented version control. Now any size team can increase productivity and easily protect documents, source code, and content for the Web or PC.
  

Visual Studio 6.0 Product Overview

To succeed in today's business environment, applications must be more scalable, reliable, and flexible than ever before. At the same time, the fast pace of business change means that developers must design and launch enterprise applications in days or weeks rather than months or years. Microsoft Visual Studio version 6.0 is a complete enterprise-class development system that helps developers meet those demands by providing the tools to create powerful, mission-critical applications—quickly and efficiently.

Rapid Team Development

Visual Studio 6.0 offers a wide range of features and tools designed specifically to support team-based application development efforts, including teams that are geographically dispersed. The distributed Web project model uses HTTP for all authoring operations, so that developers working in different locations can collaborate on the creation of sophisticated Web applications. With Visual Component Manager, developers can find, track, catalog, and reuse components more easily than ever before. For better version control, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe® 6.0 provides complete code source control and file-locking features for team development projects from any tool within the Visual Studio development suite.

Equally important, Visual Studio 6.0 can increase developer efficiency and reduce application development time. Developers can use a familiar, shared development environment and the programming languages they already know. Prebuilt components, programming wizards, and the ability to reuse components written in any language can cut the development cycle time significantly. IntelliSense®-based code completion enables developers to produce accurate code more quickly. Finally, powerful end-to-end, cross-language debugging support, coupled with cross-language debugging, helps development teams get applications up and running more rapidly. The results: greater flexibility and lower cost of ownership for companies of all sizes.

Mission Critical Tools

Increasingly, all business is e-business. Enterprises look to the Internet as an essential medium not only for communications but also for commerce and operational efficiency.

Visual Studio 6.0 delivers highly scalable, data-driven Web sites and applications. Its wide range of database programming and design tools utilize the Microsoft Universal Data Access technology. Developers can use powerful point-and-click database diagrams and graphical tools for creating tables, relationships, stored procedures, and database functions for Microsoft SQL Server™ and Oracle databases. ActiveX® Data Objects enable easy access to information from all industry-leading data sources, including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Microsoft FoxPro®, Oracle, and IBM mainframe and AS/400 databases. The Microsoft Data Engine ensures full compatibility with large SQL Server databases.

Complete Development Suite

Visual Studio 6.0 is a complete package, with tools for analyzing and modeling all aspects of an application before a single component is built—so that developers can design efficient architectures and reduce time to market. They can also choose the programming language they know best—and the language that is best suited to the solution, including Microsoft Visual Basic®, Visual C++®, Visual J++®, and Visual FoxPro®.

Thin-client, HTML-based front ends make it easy to deploy the results to any desktops running virtually any operating system. And Visual Studio 6.0 is a comprehensive resource for building applications that take full advantage of the power of the Microsoft Windows® 2000 operating system and the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers.

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