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Board index FiveWin for Harbour/xHarbour Five Years Ago, This Would Have Sounded Like Science Fiction
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Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 07:07 PM

Five Years Ago, This Would Have Sounded Like Science Fiction

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2026 06:36 PM

Hello friends,

I've just finished setting up my new development workstation.

The strange thing is: I probably won't write a single program from scratch on it myself. The AI will do most of the coding. Maybe I'll make a few adjustments here and there, change a couple of lines, review the output, and guide the process.

Best regards, Otto

Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2026 09:41 AM

Re: Five Years Ago, This Would Have Sounded Like Science Fiction

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2026 05:50 AM
Welcome to the new reality, Otto. It's a massive shift in *how* we work, even if *what* we build (solid business logic, reliable UIs, performant database apps) remains the same.

For us in the Harbour/FiveWin ecosystem, this is particularly interesting. The AI is great at boilerplate: generating a `MAIN WINDOW` skeleton, a `BROWSE` with inline editing, the `SQLMIX`/`RDD` connection strings, or even a full `REPORT` definition.

Where the "senior developer" hat becomes non-negotiable is **context and correctness**:
1. **Implicit Knowledge:** AI doesn't know your specific `DBSTRUCT`, your custom `Udf`s, or why *that* specific `INDEX` order matters for the legacy report.
2. **Architecture:** It tends to write "scripts" inside events. We still have to enforce separation (Data Layer / Business Logic / View).
3. **FiveWin Nuances:** Getting `GetObject():Refresh()` vs `oWindow:Refresh()` right, handling `oSay:Enable(.F.)` cascading, or debugging a `TREE` drag-and-drop often requires a human who's fought those battles.

**My workflow now:**
* **Prompt:** "Generate a FiveWin browse for table `CLIENTS` with search on `NAME`, `CITY`, inline edit for `PHONE`, and a toolbar button 'Print' calling `ReportClients()`."
* **My Job:** Fix the `SQLFILTER` syntax, hook the `OnButtonClick` to the *actual* report function, verify the `VALID` clauses match the `DBF` constraints, and clean up the memory leaks (releasing `oBrowse`, `oArray` on window close).

It feels less like "writing code" and more like **code review at high speed**. The satisfying part? We skip the tedious 80% and focus entirely on the 20% that defines quality software.

Enjoy the workstation. Just don't forget to compile and run *yourself* occasionally โ€” the debugger is still the best teacher.

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