Martin,
I would like to hear the success stories(or otherwise) of companies doing complete rewrites of VFP to .NET.(and please note if any are using interop in strategic places to protect their investment). Is it too early yet?

>Hi, Jim.
>
>>Really?... What if the non-interest is that VFP's interop capabilities have been so well hidden and/or MS continues to malign COM+ when it suits yet promote it when it also suits???
>
>Well, you are forgetting that COM+ (although under the Enterprise Services name) is still there in the .NET world.
>
>>Think about it. If you had lots of working code running your production systems you'd surely be interested in exploiting that stuff rather than write it anew.
>
>Sometimes it is, but sometimes is not. I'm sorry but my experience most of the times is that all those vast amount of code in VFP applications have not the appropraite isolation level to be decoupled and converted into stateless classes which could properly interop with .NET or anything else (even with ASP classic pages). In some cases, I helped teams to improve this code and get it used from the old VFP front end and from other ways, but in other case it was not possible at all.
>
>Anyway, whenever I see a team which is actually proficient (independently of th legacy code) in VFP, and it fits them to extend that way, I recommend some rewriting with VFP.
>
>When a team is expanding and they have to do a great rewite, sometimes it's better to switch to .NET because it is far easier (at least here in Latinamerica) to get proficient people in .NET than in VFP. The market size is a reality, even if we don't like it. I ca tell you that I might be in contact with at least half of the VFP community in Argentina. I keep seeing people going from a company to the other, and very, very few new ones appearing. This is all the way around in .NET.
>
>At Merino Aller, the company I work for the most time, we still have a huge application in VFP, and I hire juniors and train them in VFP, but this is something most companies I know can't afford. At the same time, when we hire .NET people I can interview a drone of guys and pick the better ones quite easily.
>
>So you see, my point is that there may different issues to keep in mind. Many are not what one would like, but we have to keep real.
>
>PS: Would you bee at Deveach this year?
>
>Best regards,