There is a company here in Los Angeles, Countrywide Mortgage. They are one of the largest, if not the largest mortgage broker in the USA. They have 2 divisions that I have intimate knowledge of.

In 2003 one of these divisions was a heavy VB6 shop, the other was heavy VFP. As of today, the VB 6 shop is quickly becoming a .Net shop. The VFP shop is also in the process of converting their main app to .Net.

A friend of mine who works there in the VB 6 side is someone I worked with several years ago. He was a network engineer at the time, and transitioned over to programming. He worked with me for awhile to learn Foxpro back then. Not once has he made any comment asking how something works in VFP, because it's just too difficult in .Net.

The last time I discussed the details of what he's doing, he mentioned that his method of data access is thru ORM tools. Using a method to model your data in objects. Java is heavy into this. They have an open source tool, Hibernate, that is very, very popular.

Using a technique such as ORM fits in with the thought process you must follow to develop good, solid classes in OOP. So many people are very happy with the technique. People I've talked to using this technique don't discuss how much code they are writing. The main point is how they are developing the code.

>>>If that's the case, why are the number of developers specializing in .Net / Java so much greater then VFP even in it's heydey?
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>We are (trying to) examine RS's proposition regarding extra lines of code to deliver better functionality. How does your question relate to this?