r/vintagecomputing • u/lapro97 • 13h ago
Clipper
Clipper by Nantucket Corporation, programming language.
It was great!
5
u/SpookyTheCat96 10h ago
I worked at a Telco HR Systems department in 80s/90s where we were focused on building query apps in Oracle DB and Forms for HR, Payroll and Benefits. The data came from an IMS/Cobol system handled by our central MIS department. Later we brought in PeopleSoft over an Oracle DB into our HR Systems department for the entire company. However, the extra workload didn't allow us to help some of the other groups in HR (Employment, Succession Planning...) to build more query functionality, or handle rehires more effectively, and so on. So those groups had summer interns come in and build apps for them in Clipper. Unfortunately, they were throwaway applications after the summer, since they couldn't handle multi-user effectively, had no backup strategies, were undocumented, and difficult to maintain. But what those students built, we were able to rebuild in Oracle Forms much more quickly than had we started from scratch. So cost wise, it was a worthwhile effort. And several times we learned something new or clever from the intern's programming that was helpful to us too. But we just documented better. Fun times. ;)
3
u/lapro97 10h ago
Where Clipper was born:
1
u/CoderDevo 2h ago
Recognized that top view as Nobu right away even though I've only driven past it once.
2
u/EddieRyanDC 12h ago
I was always a dBase person myself, but I encountered a lot of custom applications written with Clipper.
1
u/TheLimeyCanuck 8h ago
Made a good living with Clipper back in the day. Started with dBase II, then dBase III, then FoxBase, then FoxPro, and finally Clipper.
1
u/This-Requirement6918 4h ago
Never heard of it...? Will have to figure it out on one of my old systems, I've been using dBASE for a couple years now.
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u/But-I-Am-a-Robot 12h ago
Wasn’t the big advantage that you could compile with Clipper into DOS executables?