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FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software
This memoir of Fox Software details the company's growth from a college professor's side project to a 300-employee organization before its acquisition by Microsoft for $160 million in the early 1990s. Recounted are the triumphs and struggles that the development team went through as they learned how to build personal computer database software that eventually became best-of-breed and trounced the competition. Former employee Kerry Nietz describes his interview at Fox, his job offer, his first days as a rookie programmer, and the tumultuous events of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the lawsuit filed by Ashton-Tate and the merger/acquisition by Microsoft. Recounted are the varied personalities on the team, including the sometimes off-the-wall management team, and how the outside world appeared to a group of developers who spent their lives staring at computer screens, trying to ship another batch of code.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
4 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Kerry Nietz
37 books176 followersKerry Nietz is an award-winning science fiction author. He has over a half dozen speculative novels in print, along with a novella, a couple short stories, and a non-fiction book, FoxTales.
Kerry’s novel A Star Curiously Singing won the Readers Favorite Gold Medal Award for Christian Science Fiction and is notable for its dystopian, cyberpunk vibe in a world under sharia law. It has over a hundred 5-star reviews on Amazon and is often mentioned on “Best of” lists.
Among his writings, Kerry's most talked about is the genre-bending Amish Vampires in Space. AViS was mentioned on the Tonight Show and in the Washington Post, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Newsweek called it “a welcome departure from the typical Amish fare.”
Kerry is a refugee of the software industry. He spent more than a decade of his life flipping bits, first as one of the principal developers of the database product FoxPro for the now mythical Fox Software, and then as one of Bill Gates's minions at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile and a movie buff.
Kerry’s novel A Star Curiously Singing won the Readers Favorite Gold Medal Award for Christian Science Fiction and is notable for its dystopian, cyberpunk vibe in a world under sharia law. It has over a hundred 5-star reviews on Amazon and is often mentioned on “Best of” lists.
Among his writings, Kerry's most talked about is the genre-bending Amish Vampires in Space. AViS was mentioned on the Tonight Show and in the Washington Post, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Newsweek called it “a welcome departure from the typical Amish fare.”
Kerry is a refugee of the software industry. He spent more than a decade of his life flipping bits, first as one of the principal developers of the database product FoxPro for the now mythical Fox Software, and then as one of Bill Gates's minions at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile and a movie buff.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 18, 2024
If, like me, you're a developer with prior experience in the bizarre world of small software companies and / or startups - give this one a read. You'll find a lot of Nietz's tales familiar - at times, uncomfortably so. At other times, hilariously so. At least a couple of the people will almost certainly remind you of some of the people in your own story. It says a lot that my favorite chapters were the final ones - because by that time, I cared enough about the "characters" (real people, mind you) that it was truly enjoyable to find out what eventually became of all of them.
December 6, 2020
Kerry Nietz is a very enjoyable author to read. I've been reading his novels, but this auto-biographical look at his time at Fox Software is just as enjoyable. It gave me information on what the early days of computers and the internet looked at, told in a way that a person like me who's not up on all of technology can follow and appreciate.
July 3, 2013
I've broken from my 'write about science-fiction' concept a little ahead of schedule this time, but my attention was drawn this morning to a book called 'FoxTales', written by Kerry Nietz, which covers the development of the FoxPro system...which I had never heard of, I must confess. I have been interested in the history of computing for ages, though, and soaked up books such as Masters of Doom, Jacked, Commodore: Company on the Edge, and the like. On that basis, I shelled out the £3 for the Kindle copy and read it during what turned out to be an unexpectedly long writing break today.
I loved it. As the story of a programmer thrown in at the deep end, it was interesting enough, but what I found compelling was the characters that were portrayed in the book, all the different foibles and quirks; during the course of the book the reader almost gets to know them himself, which is the hallmark of an author that knows his craft. I am not surprised to learn that the writer has transited to writing novels now, though part of me would like to read a sequel fully detailing his experiences at Microsoft.
No Kindle formatting problems, I should say at this point, and the editing looked fine to me. I was compelled all the way though, and it certainly compares favourably to other books in the genre. Very impressed, and I can highly recommend it – and now I know rather more about FoxPro than I did when I started...not sure what to do with those new found skills, but I suppose something might come up...
I loved it. As the story of a programmer thrown in at the deep end, it was interesting enough, but what I found compelling was the characters that were portrayed in the book, all the different foibles and quirks; during the course of the book the reader almost gets to know them himself, which is the hallmark of an author that knows his craft. I am not surprised to learn that the writer has transited to writing novels now, though part of me would like to read a sequel fully detailing his experiences at Microsoft.
No Kindle formatting problems, I should say at this point, and the editing looked fine to me. I was compelled all the way though, and it certainly compares favourably to other books in the genre. Very impressed, and I can highly recommend it – and now I know rather more about FoxPro than I did when I started...not sure what to do with those new found skills, but I suppose something might come up...
April 28, 2016
On some of the inside, back covers of his fiction books, author Neitz describes himself as an escapee from the computer industry—that he has escaped from "flipping bits."
As a non-computer industry person, I agree with his assessment. After all, I'm only a computer user. Someone who merely operates my PC (well, a laptop now) and has no knowledge of the internal workings of computer code.
In FoxTales however, Neitz has that knowledge in droves. Not that he bores you to death talking about it, oh no. What he does do—and does very well—is take the reader behind the scenes of a company that builds computer-programs for consumer usage. That is, consumers smart enough to understand the ins and outs of early computer programs—the early DOS, FoxBASE+, FOX 1.0, FOX 2.0, dBase, and others. (The previous examples may not all be Fox products, but are mentioned in the text.) In some cases, Neitz even displays examples of code that he wrote as a way to explain the problems he worked to fix or code solutions he created to solve the product's problem.
Along the way, Neitz describes some of the more interesting company policies, personalities, products, and problems. How he deals with them are often entertaining.
Overall, FoxTales is an absorbing and charming inside look at some of the mysteries of the early computer software industry. Especially, the difficulties of making a living as a young software programmer.
As a non-computer industry person, I agree with his assessment. After all, I'm only a computer user. Someone who merely operates my PC (well, a laptop now) and has no knowledge of the internal workings of computer code.
In FoxTales however, Neitz has that knowledge in droves. Not that he bores you to death talking about it, oh no. What he does do—and does very well—is take the reader behind the scenes of a company that builds computer-programs for consumer usage. That is, consumers smart enough to understand the ins and outs of early computer programs—the early DOS, FoxBASE+, FOX 1.0, FOX 2.0, dBase, and others. (The previous examples may not all be Fox products, but are mentioned in the text.) In some cases, Neitz even displays examples of code that he wrote as a way to explain the problems he worked to fix or code solutions he created to solve the product's problem.
Along the way, Neitz describes some of the more interesting company policies, personalities, products, and problems. How he deals with them are often entertaining.
Overall, FoxTales is an absorbing and charming inside look at some of the mysteries of the early computer software industry. Especially, the difficulties of making a living as a young software programmer.
February 1, 2012
What drew me to this book was when I noticed a review on another book I had just read where Nietz sympathizes with the author..."as an author [himself]". Phrases like that bother me. Looking at all of his works and the reviews. Consisting of pretty much only 5's on both goodreads and Amazon, I felt I had to see whether he was just a truly spectacular author who bridged the divide between race and creed or someone just trying to game the system. I'll let you be the judge. All speculation aside...
I did try to make a serious attempt to read this, I could only manage about 3 chapters before I had to toss the book down in boredom and with an empty feeling in my stomach where my 5 dollars could have been better invested. The writing is dull and he'll spend a paragraph describing an uninteresting bit of scenery or doodad. There are a good number of punctuation and grammatical errors which started to drive me up a wall as well.
If you want a truly enjoyable book from the perspective of code monkey, check out Microserfs by Douglas Coupland.
I did try to make a serious attempt to read this, I could only manage about 3 chapters before I had to toss the book down in boredom and with an empty feeling in my stomach where my 5 dollars could have been better invested. The writing is dull and he'll spend a paragraph describing an uninteresting bit of scenery or doodad. There are a good number of punctuation and grammatical errors which started to drive me up a wall as well.
If you want a truly enjoyable book from the perspective of code monkey, check out Microserfs by Douglas Coupland.
May 25, 2016
If you are one of those guys who wrote an entire application using MODI COMM or CREATE SCREEN or MODI STRU this book will regale you with tales from the developers themselves. Its fun reading all this now which is like 20 odd years since I wrote my last FoxProx application which was like a ledger for small business.It was the first software that I have seen Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V work. I liked to see also that nothing much changed in terms of software development from 1993 till now..
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews