D Base IV
| Field | Programming |
| Went Obsolete | Late 1980s/early 1990s |
| Made Obsolete By | Visual Basic, Oracle, mySQL, SQL Server, etc |
| Knowledge Assumed | Procedural programming (loops); database structures |
| When useful | Modifying very old software |
dBase III, IV, Foxbase and FoxPro? were interactive environments that used an interpreted language to process data. It was significantly faster and easier to program than earlier environments, but the query environment was clunky and very difficult to program by current standards.
dBase IV and FoxPro? added SQL, which made life hugely easier for dBase programmers.
dBase IV was more advanced than primitive earlier versions, but it was also extremely unreliable. FoxBase? was a more advanced copy of the older dBase III. It became very popular. FoxPro? eventually replaced it with an advanced environment similar to dBase IV but more reliable.
Only FoxPro? survived the switch to Windows in the late 80s. Unfortunately, it was extraordinarily difficult to lay out an attractive Windows-style screen in FoxPro? for Windows, because the interface was still essentially dependent on the old fixed sized fonts. As a result most development switched to Visual Basic where this was easy as pie. VB had its own problems, but looked gorgeous compared to VFP.
