Perry,

>1) They belong to the VFP cult. And feel they should be able to decide what is said/not said here based on their own feeling. Which typically don't don't have too much basis in reality. I.E. VFP has a continually shrinking base. It was even stated by MS that new versions of VFP will be marketed to the existing VFP base.

If you're reffering to me. That is definately not true and you really have missed the point at all. I don't discourage anyone to learn .NEt at all. As for what you call feelings. I've got far too much knowledge and experience in other programming languages (like (visual/Ansi/Borland)C/C++, (Ansi/turbo)Pascal, (Visual) Basic, Z80 -, 86-fam - and 68 fam Assembly) (not to mention some scripting languages as well) in various versions to know how things relate to eachother. Know the essential difference between strong, weak, strict, static and dynamic typing? I've programmed in all, so I think I know a bit about the subject.

My arguments are always based on some deeper theory on fact. You cannot accuse me of launching statements in the wild. You can agree to my conclusions or not, that is your choice. But I pretty much know where I stand and I do know what I know, which in general is way more than the average participant here.

My motivation here in the post JVP era, is to give the reader something to think about. .NET is not the perfect successor of VFP. It is not a replacement. There are significant differences and not all for the better or worse.

There is a difference between static and dynamic typing and you have to deal with the consequences. There is evolvement in IDEs, also in regards to the advantages of strong typing. In VFP7 we got the enhancement in LOCAL declarations so we could use intellisense (though not always perfect) in a weakly typed language. We got inline compilation in VFP9. All mechanisms to improve code reliability. Is it so darn difficult to see that VFP is closing the gap between static and dynamic types languages ??? What will VFP10 bring ?? Maybe if we ask, VFP could check a whole procedure when we type in undeclared variables and put a red line beneath the undeclared variable. Next step is to let the IDE identify type mismatches where possible. Add some improvements to intellisense and offer some optional compile time checking and there is virtually no advantage left in strong typing over performance.

Is it really hard to see this ??

>2) Even more so, I am highly offended by others trying to censor what is apropriate for me to see. In essence they are saying that I am not capable of making decisions on my own. I should be hidden from any messages about other tools I might use. They are qualified to decide what messages I should see.

This is a VFP forum, therefore the messages should be related to VFP. Now the question is if this type of message really belongs here. I'm not sure. I've got my own opinion on that.

Walter,