Hi stephen

>>How about developers beeing force to use a certain tool because it is demanded by their management or client for no technical reason ??

>As a consultant the customer is usualy right ;) In terms of "I want it done in this tool." I long ago gave up the single tool toolbox. It's their nickle, and I'll accept as many as I can get if they want to keep pushing them out.

As a consultant I only take jobs which fit my bill. I don't let me be forced into a certain development tool. If I'm going to learn another tool, that is my choice, not the one made by anyone of my customers. Up to date I've got more work than I can handle, having different tools in my toolbox. I'm spending my time to specializing myself in the tools I already know. From my pov it just does not make sense to be joe average in a lot of different tools: Be a specialist in everything you do. You just get more satisfaction out of your work.

>>>I can tell you from experience that you will not get a VB6 developer to use VFP except in very rare circumstances even when demonstrating how much more productive you can be with VFP than VB6.
>
>Much like you won't find a VFP develper picking up java, for any reason. It's a comfort factor.

You are replying on a line from Rick, not mine.

>>I'm still waiting on Microsoft to announce a new development platform where RAD and Database integration has the foremost priority. From my idealogical standpoint this is the wave of the future. I'd like to promote the sentence: "Every application wants to be a database application when it grow" to "Every development tool wants to be a database tool when it grows up". .NET in any way you put it does not fit the bill. I'd rather wait for the announcement of the tool (Microsoft has some research projects going on that are more data centric), than hastly jump the wrong ship. I'd rather jump once into the right ship.

>hahahaha. Not ever tool plays well with others. .NET does a great job in attempting to deliver on that line. VFP can't, wont and that will be it's final pox.

Where ever did I say this ?? I'm just awaiting new technology that more fits into my perception of the future. More the like of ERP/ERM systems with e.g. .NET integration (MBF), or an significant upgrade to their aquired Navision. IOW, more database oriented development platforms. Something that .NET currently is rather weak in. Therefore I'm waiting for the next generation of database driven technology. It is my pov that the single .NET platform is not there (yet).

>You seem to be comparing a 20 year old product xBase to a three year old single version product .NET. Version 2005 has allot of improvements. More so then VFP6 did over 3.

Again, why do you feel a need to read something into my statements that is not there? I'm awaiting technology that is beyond the technology that now is offered, even with the public beta 2005. And in no ways I'm refering here to VFP as the perfect tool here. I KNOW that VFP has a lot of shortcommings that are better in .NET, but that does not mean I'm willing to give up my entire investment in VFP and willing to spend a lot of time rewriting and some features I really like and use in VFP (because they are hard to do in .NET). I'd rather sit back and wait what happens in the future. There currently is no valid reason to me to even think about adopting .NET development for the apps I'm building.

>.NET is great at the little stuff. Like making a picker dialouge that will showcase images instead of details or plain file names. When you get to the nitty gritty VFP won't ever do it and you only have to roll your own each and every time.

Sure, but the question is if you need it ?? I don't have a lot of application for building my own controls. The ones I have will do it nicely, along with the current set of 3rd party ActiveX controls. Building database applications is something entirely different from building multimedia applications and not every database application lends itself to port to the web either. So it really depends on the application of the software.