That's easy - many organizations follow Microsoft today as they once did for IBM. Let's say Microsoft pushed VFP instead of .NET. You can bet a lot of shops would be jumping all over themselves trying to implement VFP. In other words, it's less for the technical merits, in a lot of cases, and more because it's the latest and greatest from MS. Some developers like you get caught up in this and have to go whichever way the wind is blowing. I'm sure there are some areas where .NET would have the edge in technology simply because of the amount of resources they're putting behind it. However, I don't think, at this point, it would justify jumping ship purely on technical merits. This is classic Microsoft marketing strategy at work with a healthy dosage of FUD in the mix...

>Once again I get back to one of my original points. If .Net is unfinished business, especially since it's missing these critical features that are found in VFP, why are so many folks developing in .Net today? And why are so few developing in VFP?
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>I was with my buddy from Countrywide today. They are the largest mortgage company in the USA. They are a hugh company, but I'm aware of the IT departments of 2 of their divisions. One used to be a big VB6 shop for desktop apps. The other used to be a big VFP shop. Both are in the process of converting to .Net.
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>Due to their size, they have the luxury of calling on software vendors and making demands of them. So they have had many discussions with folks at MS, IBM, etc. With the vendors sending analysts to Countrywide to help them make technical decisions going forward.
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>Both the VB6 department and VFP department are converting to .Net. This means they were convinced that there is something to gain by switching to .Net. As a banking type company they are typically conservative when it comes to making tech decisions. Yet they were convinced its okay to change.
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>You can go visit www.countrywide.com and see that the company website is done in .Net now. In particular, on the banking tab, you can see a page that displays data that is done in .Net.
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>>>Martín picked up on part of where I was going, so maybe now you can see why I asked. Suffice it to say you've evaluated pros and cons, and the direction you chose reflects that. I respect that.
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>>What other choices do you have. Either you respect it and everything is fine or you don't and I don't care ;->
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>>>The other part is this: you said you didn't want to waste your time on unfinished business. You also made references to product maturity. It seems you have one standard (pragmatic) of weighing pros and cons for tools you've used, and other standard of acceptance for those you haven't. That's where I see things differently.
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>>I'm a very complex person you know <g>
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>>>Consider this...FoxPro has had an implementation of SQL for years - yet it took VFP9 to come close to supporting the SQL-92 standard. Until V9, many queries found in Joe Celko's books would not run in VFP. When I worked in environments where VFP was the back-end, I was discouraged that I couldn't use different techniques - but I found workarounds, didn't refer to the product as "unfinished business", and moved on.
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>>>It doesn't take stones to refer to .NET as "unfinished business" , ".NOT", ".NYET", or any of the silly posts by the UT member who has the term "marquee buffet speakers" on the brain 24-7. It demonstrates something very different: a level of intellectual dishonesty, and a lack of the very analytical approach our industry demands of us.
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>>>Sometimes the best way for one to truly sound off like they've got a pair is to bear down and use some elbow grease to get the job done. If you wait for the "perfect product", you'll be waiting forever. The term "unfinished business" is a pretty weighty term. I can honestly say I'm a much better developer than I was 2 years ago, and not just because of natural evolution - it's also because of exposure to a new technology. .NET is far from perfect - but it can do many things, and it IS, in the words of college basketball icon Dick Vitale, a PTP (Prime Time Player).
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>>This is just a weird feeling I have about .Net not being finished. I don't know .Net but from what I hear will be in VS .Net 2005 (data-centric improvements) and from what I saw at a MS conference about ASP.Net 2.0 I can't believe that those things were not there to start with.
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>>To me it looks like MS thought. "Ok we'll do some things but we're not sure which directions developer will want to go after that so we'll leave it there for a while and wait for the developer's feedback. Then we'll add a bit more and wait again."
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>>I don't want it to be pefect. When I switch to .Net I just don't want to move backwards when comparing to how easy things are with VFP.
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>>In VFP I have the command box, Macro Expansion, Local Cursor and many other things. I want those in .Net. Is that what you call perfection?