11-11-2019, 03:13 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-11-2019, 03:15 AM by DreamWeaver.
Edit Reason: Typo
)
The original Midgard code was was written using Clipper:
Clipper is an xBase compiler, which is a computer programming language, that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under MS-DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs.
Clipper was created by Nantucket Corporation, a company that was started in 1984 by Barry ReBell (management) and Brian Russell (technical). In 1992, the company was sold to Computer Associates for 190 million dollars and the product was renamed to CA-Clipper.
Clipper was created as a replacement programming language for Ashton Tate's dBASE III, a very popular database language at the time. The advantage of Clipper over dBASE was that it could be compiled and executed under MS-DOS as a standalone application. In the years between 1985 and 1992, millions of Clipper applications were built, typically for small businesses dealing with databases concerning many aspects of client management and inventory management. For many smaller businesses, having a Clipper application designed to their specific needs was their first experience with software development. Also a lot of applications for banking and insurance companies were developed, here especially in those cases where the application was considered too small to be developed and run on traditional mainframes. In these environments Clipper also served as a front end for existing mainframe applications.
As the product matured, it remained a DOS tool for many years, but added elements of the C programming language and Pascal programming language, as well as OOP, and the code-block data-type (hybridizing the concepts of dBase macros, or string-evaluation, and function pointers), to become far more powerful than the original. Nantucket's Aspen project later matured into the Windows native-code Visual Objects compiler.
Despite these efforts in the early nineties under its new ownership Clipper proved to be unable to make a smooth transition from the MS-DOS to the Microsoft Windows era. As a result, almost no new commercial applications were written in Clipper after 1995. Four of the more important languages that took over from Clipper were Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, Delphi and Powerbuilder. Some existing Clipper applications continued in use for ten or fifteen years, requiring regular maintenance, but around 2015 the number of Clipper applications that were still used commercially on a daily basis was very small.
A factor in Clipper's decline was also due in part to issues with the Clipper 5.0 product. Some applications developed in Clipper 5.0 crashed frequently and unpredictably. Nantucket didn't address the issue and some developers moved on to different products out of necessity to have stable applications. Nantucket seemed to be reluctant to even acknowledge there was an issue. The problem (memory leak?) was later fixed by Computer Associates. (No data for reference - I was active in the Clipper community and this was what I witnessed at the Clipper conferences.)
Clipper is an xBase compiler, which is a computer programming language, that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under MS-DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs.
Clipper was created by Nantucket Corporation, a company that was started in 1984 by Barry ReBell (management) and Brian Russell (technical). In 1992, the company was sold to Computer Associates for 190 million dollars and the product was renamed to CA-Clipper.
Clipper was created as a replacement programming language for Ashton Tate's dBASE III, a very popular database language at the time. The advantage of Clipper over dBASE was that it could be compiled and executed under MS-DOS as a standalone application. In the years between 1985 and 1992, millions of Clipper applications were built, typically for small businesses dealing with databases concerning many aspects of client management and inventory management. For many smaller businesses, having a Clipper application designed to their specific needs was their first experience with software development. Also a lot of applications for banking and insurance companies were developed, here especially in those cases where the application was considered too small to be developed and run on traditional mainframes. In these environments Clipper also served as a front end for existing mainframe applications.
As the product matured, it remained a DOS tool for many years, but added elements of the C programming language and Pascal programming language, as well as OOP, and the code-block data-type (hybridizing the concepts of dBase macros, or string-evaluation, and function pointers), to become far more powerful than the original. Nantucket's Aspen project later matured into the Windows native-code Visual Objects compiler.
Despite these efforts in the early nineties under its new ownership Clipper proved to be unable to make a smooth transition from the MS-DOS to the Microsoft Windows era. As a result, almost no new commercial applications were written in Clipper after 1995. Four of the more important languages that took over from Clipper were Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, Delphi and Powerbuilder. Some existing Clipper applications continued in use for ten or fifteen years, requiring regular maintenance, but around 2015 the number of Clipper applications that were still used commercially on a daily basis was very small.
A factor in Clipper's decline was also due in part to issues with the Clipper 5.0 product. Some applications developed in Clipper 5.0 crashed frequently and unpredictably. Nantucket didn't address the issue and some developers moved on to different products out of necessity to have stable applications. Nantucket seemed to be reluctant to even acknowledge there was an issue. The problem (memory leak?) was later fixed by Computer Associates. (No data for reference - I was active in the Clipper community and this was what I witnessed at the Clipper conferences.)
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