I have written earlier about my first experience with FoxBase & Clipper here & it is no secret I love the Clipper platform.

During my Engineering college days (1992-96) I spent many days reading Rick Spence’s Clipper Programming Guide (2nd Edition, Version 5) and Clipper 5.2 Power Programming Guide. I knew every page & its contents in Rick Spence’s books than any of my engineering syllabus textbooks. In the Clipper Summer ‘87/88 (or earlier) versions I liked the in-built features that made Data management straightforward and the simple syntax (like Display, Input controls) in the programming language. But as I wrote more complex applications, code-reuse became difficult and the time taken, to write increased, so implementing some Object Orientation was made necessary. That’s where Clipper 5.2 with its OOPS features (in-built and through 3rd party plug-ins) came as a blessing, and Rick Spence made the whole thing palatable and understandable. As a matter of fact, after I read Rick Spence’s Clipper 5.2, is when I read fully Bjarne Stroustrup’s book on C++.

So why I am writing all this today, a friend of mine called me today and said he had got an enquiry for an MNC asking him to do a week-long course on Clipper. What Clipper, do people still use it?. It seems so. That triggered my short trip in memory lane and in the evening when I came home, I searched my attic and found my 3 books on Clipper (shown below).

Clipper Programming Guide 2nd Edition Version 5 by Rick Spence, Co-Developer of Clipper

Clipper Programming Guide 2nd Edition Version 5 by Rick Spence, Co-Developer of Clipper

Shown above: Clipper Summer ‘88 Manual; Clipper Programming Guide 2nd Edition Version 5 by Rick Spence, Clipper 5.2 Power Programmer’s Guide by Rick Spence.

Categorized in:

CodingFlashbackTechnology

Tagged in:

,