FoxPro to Access and back again
By Seth Hemmelgarn NICAR
Looking at the class schedule at Indiana CAR, one trend stood out:
Most classes were taught using Access, not FoxPro. This reflected the shift in newsrooms across the country; use of Access has become more widespread.
"Ever since Access 2.0 came out and proved to be fairly stable, there's been a steady drift toward deploying it for general newsroom use," said NewsEngin's George Landau. As part of the Microsoft Office Package, Access is readily available, and newsrooms just starting CAR programs - even those already having them - are using Access more frequently.
If you don't know anything about Structured Query Language, Access' query grid can be simpler way to build queries. You can point and click your way through them. But if you do know SQL, the grid can make analysis harder.
"Still resisting," said The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Beth Marchak, who prefers FoxPro's more direct approach to analysis. "I think in SQL. Learning Access is like being forced to walk around the barn to gain entry when I'm already standing at the front entrance."
"Learning basics in Fox makes it easier for anyone to apply basic concepts and database skills no matter what program is used." - Dave Fallis, Tulsa World
Marchak also shies away from Access because she doesn't want it choking on her data, as previous versions of the software have been notorious for doing. "What good is a database manager that can't handle more than 250,000 records?" Marchak said. "All my databases are much bigger than that."
Though maybe not the most fashionable software, FoxPro is still worth learning. "Learning basics in Fox makes it easier for anyone to apply basic concepts and database skills no matter what program is used," said the Tulsa World's Dave Fallis.
FoxPro's library of string functions, downloadable utilities, and easily understood programming/scripting language should keep the program from getting too antiquated, Tom Boyer of The Seattle Times said.
Landau uses Access to keep track of queries and build front-ends, but he still prefers FoxPro for processing and cleaning. "Even Access97 continues to lack many of the important data-cleaning functions that are built into FoxPro," he said. "It does seem, however, that Access97 is considerably faster than its predecessors at running large queries."
Access does have its advantages. It has more export options. You can save an Access file as a FoxPro file, but not vice versa. Fallis also finds the import wizard handy for quick and dirty imports into blank database structures. Working with relational databases is where Access has the most obvious advantage over other software. "FoxPro is not and never will be a purebred relational database," Landau said. "Access, in contrast, has relational integrity and validation rules hard-wired into its database engine."
Landau assumes this partially explains why Access is slower than FoxPro at some tasks: it takes a no-frills approach to data manipulation.
With the proliferation of Access, what will become of FoxPro and others?
Landau, for one, isn't sure. "Once SQL Server is made less scary and more affordable, I bet they'll try to wean everyone off of FoxPro and onto a single platform." Landau's not thrilled with this idea, since SQL Server is slower than FoxPro at reformatting large amounts of data. But, he said, SQL Server beats both Access and FoxPro at allowing lots of people to query the same database simultaneously.
Despite Access' popularity, those who prefer FoxPro may never give it up completely. As Boyer said, "I'll probably still have FoxPro on my machine when I'm old and gray."