XBase - Influences Over Time

Influences Over Time

In 1989, Microtrend Books published the first "Xbase" cross-reference book (before the term was coined), The dBASE Language Handbook, by David M. Kalman, which covered Quicksilver, Clipper, dbxl, dBASE III, dBASE III Plus, dBASE IV, and FoxBase+. At more than 1,000 pages, it compared the execution of commands and functions to enable developers to build and maintain portable applications.

In 1993, Sybex, Inc. (computer books) published the Xbase Cross Reference Handbook, by Sheldon M. Dunn, another cross reference of the most commonly used xBase languages at that time—dBASE III+, dBASE IV, FoxPro for DOS, FoxPro for Windows, FoxPro for Macintosh and Clipper 5.1. At 1352 pages and 5.1 pounds shipping weight, the Cross Reference was hardly a handbook, but it provided the xBase community with an up-to-date, all-in-one reference manual, and addressed one of the major documentation problems that the community was facing. The software companies had decided to break their manuals into sections, separating commands from functions, etc., and splitting the (previous) manual into two or three different manuals, and the community was left trying to figure what-was-what and which manual to keep close at hand. 1993 was pivotal for the xBase community because, as previously noted, Ashton-Tate had earlier sold dBASE as well as the rest of their product line to Borland and Microsoft had purchased FoxPro from Fox Software. Borland had also purchased QuickSilver to get a foot up the development ladder for a dBASE version for Windows (then 3.1). In 1994, Borland launched dBase V for Windows and dBASE V for DOS before selling the dBASE name and product line to dBASE Inc.

In recent years there seems to be a renewed interest in xBase, mostly because of a number of open source, portable, xBase implementations (listed below), and the scripting applicability of the language. While newer desk-top database tools are optimized for mouse usage, xBase has always been "keyboard friendly", which helps make scripting and meta-programming (automating the automation) easier. Meta-programming generally does not work as well with mouse-oriented techniques because automating mouse movements can require calculating and processing of screen coordinates, something most developers find tedious and difficult to debug. xBase is one of the few table-oriented scripting languages still available.