Clipper (programming language)

Clipper, from Nantucket Corp and later Computer Associates, started out as a native code compiler for dBase III databases, and later evolved.

[7] As the product matured, it remained a DOS tool for many years, but added elements of the C programming language and Pascal programming language, as well as OOP, and the code-block data-type (hybridizing the concepts of dBase macros, or string-evaluation, and function pointers), to become far more powerful than the original.

Also, in November 1991, the New York Times reported the company's success in "painstakingly convincing Soviet software developers that buying is preferable to pirating".

By then, the "classically trained programmer" commonly used strong typing, in contrast to the original dBASE language.

An evolution of Clipper, named VO, added strong typing but made it optional, in order to remain compatible with existing code.

The Clipper language is being actively implemented and extended by multiple organizations/vendors, like XBase++ from Alaska Software and FlagShip, as well as free (GPL-licensed) projects like Harbour and xHarbour.