>The truth is a lot of developers - regardless of tool - are not really learning how to solve problems. And the fish biting the NOT hook may be, in reality, more insecure about their skill sets than they are letting on. If one does not have a grasp of their current situation - why not move to something where it seems ignorance will not be noticed.

This is very true. A good developer is likely to be a good developer with ANY tool they use. I've long argued that Software Development and problem solving skills are vastly more important than choice of development tool.

In the end good developers end up with tools that work similarily regardless of platform. By that I mean they build their toolset to match how they work by building libraries of reusable code.

>VFP is a good tool to learn problem solving. Just moving to NOT will not enhance you problem solving skills. When someone hires us for really technical (not help desk) work they can judge by the light in our eyes weather or not we are a player or a cheerleader.

Any development tool is a good way to learn problem solving. That's the nature of software development. But some people just don't have this mind set in the first place. To them it also isn't going to matter which tool they use - they'll likely struggle with it no matter what.

>When they see the light - it does not matter what the tool is - or how many facts about this or that tool that we can list. What matters is the confidence we have in ourselves.

Well, skiill and experience counts for some as well... As much as we're talking about technical stuff here, the human factor can't be under estimateed either in grasping solutions and finding ways to arrive at them and implement them. Without experience that's tough to do...