Once upon a time when handheld PCs were larger than the original Motorola "brick" cell phone, a project was to be coded in BASICA under DOS 3.3. Why? Because the Fortune 500 company requesting the project was too cheap to do it right. The guy coding the stuff was being asked to make the BASICA program do automatic edits. Did I mention that BASICA was slower than molasses in January? All my coworkers were mini an The guy coding the stuff was being asked to make the BASICA program do automatic edits. Did I mention that BASICA was slower than molasses in January?All my coworkers were mini and mainframe programmers by trade. One day, I and the guy in charge of coding this project were on a break when he lamented how difficult BASICA was to work with. What they wanted was brutally simple to whip out in any real language. I happened to dabble in dBase and Clipper in my spare time and offered to bring him a prototype the next day. He loaded the compiled EXE on the lowly 386SX handheld, and it was nearly everything they’d asked him to do. I gave him the source code, and I compiled his edits the next night. He picked up Clipper coding in about two hours by looking at my original code and a manual I’d let him borrow. He’d wasted four days working on a simple edit routine in BASICA that dBase and Clipper did natively with a single line. You’d think this was a story with a happy ending, but unfortunately, it takes a dark turn. My friend was so happy that his worst nightmare was over, but it was really just beginning. For me, it was just another chapter of being too helpful without being asked.He enthusiastically showed his supervisors the completed program. They praised him and asked how he got it done so quickly in BASICA. He told them that, with my help, he had done it in Clipper instead. The bright smiles turned to frowns. He wasn’t sure if it was my involvement or the use of an unapproved product that soured them. Maybe it was both. You see, I had a reputation among my peers for being the go-to guy for anything PC-related. In a previous life and in my spare time, I did PC work for some mom-and-pop shops. My boss was aware of it and was determined to keep me away from anything PC-related during the work day. Things got ugly. My friend and I nearly got fired. Despite my offers to give the company the code and all rights to the compiled version, they nearly canned us both. We had jeopardized an important project by not using … BASICA? The company tried to scare us by threatening us with legal action, even though I was fully licensed to create Clipper programs and distribute them. At the time, it was quite serious. We both lived in fear for some months after that, but the company finally bought a copy of Clipper. My buddy was eventually promoted, but he left shortly thereafter of his own accord. I’m still here, but I’m keeping my bright ideas to myself. Data Management