Who is John V. Petersen?
I have been developing software for about 12 years, since 1990. Prior to software development, I was an accountant. I got into software development quite by accident. In 1990, I was involved in a computer conversion project that my company was undergoing. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I got sucked in. I stuck out on my own in rest is history. I started with Fox in 1992 while pursuing my MBA.
I live just outside of Philadelphia. I have been married for almost 12 years and have two boys.
What does the "V" stand for in your name?
V as in Viktor
You take part time University courses. What are you studying?
I am studying Law at Rutgers University
How do you find time to study law when you are a computer consultant?
It is not easy. I am in class 10 hours a week. I study another 30 hours a week. It is like having another full time job. Somehow, I do manage to find time to work and spend time with my family.
Which type of law do you plan to practice?
That is a good question. Most likely, I am going to practice corporate law. The emphasis will be on how technology impacts business. The Internet and the technical world at large will cause substantial rewrites of existing laws and statutes.
Then again, I am really pissed off at what is going on the world today. The thought had crossed my mind that for a few years, I would join the DOJ as a United States Attorney and prosecute a few terrorists. Believe me, those bastards would understand terror when they see JVP as their adversary and who wants nothing more than to prosecute and make them pay for damage they have caused.
Will your experience as a computer consultant bring anything to your future law career?
It better!! Seriously, I think it takes good technical skills to make the required legal arguments necessary to defend clients that are confronted with technical issues. The key rests with how you relate 50 to 100 year old law with 21st Century technology.
I see on your site that you are working on a book titled "Absolute Beginner's Guide to Databases". Can you talk about it?
Sure. The book is for the absolute beginner, for the person who does not know a thing about databases. I was approached by Jenny Watson at Que, whom I have worked with before when she was at Prima. As it turned out, the market place is barren for this type of book. The goal of the book was to, as much as possible, be database implementation agnostic. The book introduces the reader to the concepts of database analysis, design, and implementation as well as SQL.
Regarding your strong background in Visual FoxPro, do you plan to make use of it in this upcoming book (are you planning to evangelise VFP to the outside world :-) )?"
No. I relied on Access. FoxPro is not a beginner’s database. Even if I decided to use Fox, the implementation in Fox is too specific. I would be forced to explain what a command window was and how to use it. Further, I would have to explain why the lines between programming and database development in Fox are blurred. Simply put, Fox was not a good fit here.
As for evangelizing Fox, that is MS’s job, not mine. People should wake up and smell the coffee on this one: if MS does not care about evangelizing Fox to the outside world, why should the development community care???
Would you like to tell us more about your participation as an author or co-author in other books you have written so far such as "Visual FoxPro 6 Enterprise Development"?
I met Rod Paddock at FoxTeach in 1995. I attended his VFP/Internet sessions. Afterwards, I introduced myself and offered my services to tech-edit an upcoming book he had in the works. I was not an unknown entity at the time since I was writing for FoxTalk. By the end of the show, I was set to write a chapter or two. In a few weeks, I ended up getting 1/3 of the book as a named author. Since that time, Rod and I have become best friends. And as they say - the rest is history.
Can you talk to us about upcoming .NET articles you are expecting to write in the next few months for CoDe magazine?
I have one in the can now - on COM/Interop. As for other articles, there are several under consideration. However, at this point, I cannot let the cat out of the bag.
What does this year looks like in regards to your participation in developers conferences?
I don’t plan on going to developer conferences. There may be one or two in the next couple of years, but I will go as an attendee, not a speaker. Of the shows I would consider, it would be an extremely good bet that the shows would have a .NET focus.
As per what has been discussed on the Universal Thread recently, you seem to toward your development knowledge to .NET, or at least, to allocate a certain percentage of your time to the .NET framework. How do you see your time sharing in regards to your presence in upcoming Visual FoxPro conferences and/or your involvment in articles, books, project developments or any other related Visual FoxPro topics for the next year?
I have decided that VFP does not warrant additional investments of time on my part. The sad fact is - in every nook and cranny, the VFP market is declining. In my opinion, the future is about .NET and smart VFP developers will jump on the .NET bandwagon as soon as possible. I had a VFP book deal in hand, but after some hard thinking, I decided that a VFP book warranted too much time relative to the expected/probable financial return. For me, VFP pays the bills and that is about it.
You have the MVP logo on your site, but you have removed it from your Universal Thread signature. Would you like to explain why?
Too many people up on the UT believed that the presence of the MVP in my signature relative to what I was saying was confusing. i.e., how could a Fox MVP say these things? It got so bad that some MVP’s openly complained to MS about my posts - in the efforts of trying to get MS to rescind the award. To MS’s credit, several of these people were put in their place since it is an award the MS gives. i.e., it is not an award given with the approval of other MVP’s. I felt the simplest thing to do was to simply delete the MVP from my sig.
As for my web site, that is a different issue. Having earned the award since 1996, it is an important part of my resume.
You already have experiment with the Microsoft .NET framework. You probably already have exchanged a lot with this community. Other than the Universal Thread community, how would you describe the .NET community versus the Visual FoxPro community?
I don’t think a .NET community exists. As far as the Fox community is concerned, that was lightening in a bottle. I don’t think there will
ever be another development community like it again. I know MS has goals to somehow capture that spirit and transplant it to .NET. I think there is a good MVP community. But, as far as the developer world at large, I don’t think the rest of the world operates like the VFP community. For one thing, the .NET world will consist of millions of developers. I think there will be small pockets here and there. As a distinct, cognizable unit, I don’t think that will happen. But then again, I could be wrong since MS has hired Alan Griver. If anybody can inject the spirit of community into the .NET world, Alan can. The most important thing MS has to remember is that community begins at the grass roots level. It cannot be a bullet point as part of a corporate strategy. Communities are not created and built in an incremental fashion. Rather, they evolve. They are more of a sociological thing than anything else...
What would you consider the hardest part of VS .NET to learn from a VFP programmer's perspective?
Where do I start? First off, I think ALL developers are going to have issues. In my opinion, one of the big issues to get a grasp on is the independence between the language and the framework. Whether you work in C# or VB, most of your work is with the .NET framework. VB 6 and VFP 6/7 object models are tightly integrated into the implementation of those languages. Fortunately, there were a lot of similarities between the two, at least from an object stand point that made it easy to switch between the two. Now, language and the object model has been decoupled. In summary, the first issue is to let go of preconceived notions about a language and instead, concentrate on objects and the framework.
The next big issue is the lack of VFP data. This may be the most difficult thing for VFP developers to grasp, especially those who have not migrated to SQL Server. Personally, I think ADO .NET is a good start, but IMO, it is way too complicated. Hopefully, MS will simplify things a bit.
Finally, and maybe this one will the hardest one - the comfort level. There are lots of people in the VFP community that have a difficult time letting go of their comfort level. Fox developers have been the butt of many jokes. VFP developers can join a franchise that will not be neglected.
Can you talk to us about the shift from a Visual Basic developers to VB .NET?
This is an open-ended question! I for one don’t think VB developers will have a more difficult time in grasping .NET than anyone else. There are those that feel that VB developers will get crushed with OO concepts like inheritance. Maybe inheritance will be difficult, but it is one piece of a very big puzzle. Quite frankly, .NET looks a lot more like VB than VFP. I think VB developers, which I count myself as one, will do just fine.
What is your expectation about developing for the .NET platform?
My expectations are high. I think in the next few years, .NET will be the dominate platform for developing windows applications. I remember Roger Heinen’s (Former database VP with MS) keynote at the 1993 VFP Devcon in Orlando. It is hard to believe that was almost 9 years ago. During that keynote, he talked about the unified tools strategy. Basically, regardless of language, you could enjoy the same features. Isn’t this .NET? As far as I am concerned, .NET is the culmination of 9 years of work. Were there failed attempts along the way? Yes. The key thing to remember is that the strategy stayed in tact. And for that reason and the fact that MS has a 5.5 billion dollar R and D department, I am extremely confident that .NET will succeed. And keep in mind that this comes from a guy who was very critical of .NET during beta 1!
.NET was suppose to keep us away from the DLL Hell, but in fact does it create another type of hell in the form of the CLR version Hell?
Perhaps. But then again, you don’t have to deal with the registry. Only time will tell here. I suppose we could pre-suppose all kinds of problems. I don’t think there is any question that MS took a lot of time to think about how to address this issue. Will it be perfect? I doubt it. Will it work? I think it has as good a chance at success as possible.
How would you describe the ADO implementation in .NET?
I paint big strokes here. Basically, the recordset object in ADO was carved up into a number of objects (dataset, data adapter, etc.). Think
of the dataset as nothing more than a data environment in VFP. Data adapters can have a number of tables and relations between tables. Best of all, it all occurs on the client. IMO, the big changes deal with how data is managed on the client and how you fetch data from and pass data to the server.
If you would be working in the Microsoft .NET department and would have the ability to implement a major enhancement to the way the .NET infrastructure is presently, either at its technical level or up to its marketing level, what would that be?
I could not comment on the technical side because I have only scratched the surface. On the marketing side, I would like to see VS .NET’s capabilities in developing LAN/Desktop apps emphasized. i.e., it is not just about developing web-based apps. In addition, I would like to see the use of Windows Forms emphasized. IMO, browser-based interfaces are a thing of the past.
How do you see .NET in 5 years?
As pervasive as VB is today.
We would like to know more about your favorite .NET sites. Would you like to tell us about yours and why you like them?
The Fawcette web sites and MSDN. Both have lots of good/solid technical information.
You find a bottle in the desert, open it and a jinni grant you only one wish. What is this wish?
For my kids to stay happy and safe. The world right now is not a great place. Every kid deserves their time of innocence, free from the terror that lurks behind every corner.
Thank you for this very interesting interview
