Thanks Gaylen. My thoughts exactly. Except for the part about the ribs and grand-children. I'll substitute that with sore legs from over training at the gym :)



>Perry - I am trying to support my family selling VFP solutions. When people publically criticize VFP as a language with phrases such as old technology ,doesn't have stong typing etc etc it make my job that much harder and so I react. I have no problems with people switching to .net if they are being faced with not having work. However that does not mean that VFP is a dinasour, it just means that for some they need to move on. I guess some of you feel that some of us are hard of hearing as you continue to pound away at moving to .net.
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>I understand that VFP consulting jobs are shrinking and therefore having more than one tool in the tool box is a good idea. However there are plenty of opportunities out there for VFP in the small business world. I don't see the future that bleak with VFP. Not all business and applications need to be web based.
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>I think the web based concept fostered by the MIS directors help them to distribute appliation and provide access but for the most part provides poor data input and applications for the user.
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>True story - I was asked 6 months ago to build a membership application for an association, similar to what I had written for another association. I declined as I was in the middle of a large project and didn't have the time.
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>The MIS person at the association wanted a web based membership system which really turned out to be nothing more than allowing various groups to look at listings of member from the web based on selection criteria. So some vendor came along with a .net solution to meet the web based requirements. Bid $25,000 for the job which was about right for that type of application as it only has 16,000 member and two levels of membeship. An officer of the association, who had ask me to do the job initially, said they are now at $90,000 and the project is still not complete. So much for a web based system. I am not blaming .net as the programmer has a lot to do with it, but rather the MIS director that didn't have the foggiest idea about system development. Not all systems need to be web based system. Most small businesses wanted a web presence, but that does not mean their operating systems has to written around the web. These are the type of opporunities that VFP along with ActivevFP, WWC,
>AFP can fill very nicely at a lot less costs.
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>I have employed MIS mangagers and have to deal with them in my consulting practice. I find they are like blind sheep being guided by every new technology that comes down the pike so they can say they are on the cutting edge of technology. As a result they do a poor job of providing the basic applications to the users. They generally are more concerned with connectivity issues than on applications. One MIS director that I know has a red light go on in his office when the main system goes down, so he can be prepared for the numerous phone calls he will receive.
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>When they do 360 reviews in organizations that use those type of personel evaluations, how do you think the MIS manager rates?
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>I would prefer the arguments on VFP go something like this. VFP is still alive and well. It is a great tool for data centric appication for small business and departments within an enterprise. It is a great front end to SQL Server if there is a need to migrate the application because of the growth of the business. MIS directors are resistant to letting VFP within their organization as they are afraid they will lose control of the data, not because of any defiency in VFP. The solution for them and I have seen it done in several organization is for them to create a small development staff of VFP developers. The speed of development using VFP solution will more than make up for the costs involved. NOT all application have to be enterprise applications. To think so leaves many users out in the cold as the enterprise systems get so unwield over time, they spend all their time on maintenance and not on bringing up new functions. MSFT needs to continue to reassure the MIS directors that it
>is not going away and that it can be a valuable tool for their organization. Hopefully some of the latest publicity for VFP9 I think will eventually reach the MIS directors. I continue to pound away at it every chance I get. For me the cup is not half empty for VFP, I like to think it is half full.
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>Perry you can make your arguments for switching to .net without having to denegrate VFP. I am sure there are plenty of negative things about .net, so why don't you issue warning about them also? All languages have their good and bad points. I prefer to dwell on the good and work around the bad.
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>Sorry if this is rather long. I broke several ribs playing soccer with my grandchildren yesterday and found it much more painful trying to lay down than sitting at the computer.
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>Gaylen
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