>Upon what do you base this opinion? 15 years ago xBase was in its heyday. Clipper, dBase, foxBase, and a couple of offshoots. What do we have today? VFP is hanging on, dbase is all but dead, clipper has evolved into caObjects which I don't think exists anymore...

John,

It's a valid question, and though not directed to me... I'd like to field it as I agree with the assertion that VFP is doing well. For me it's based on the most recent version of VFP compared in its entirety to previous versions. I see some encouraging steps being taken with VFP, though they are baby steps, such as Ken Levy's work on increasing VFPs exposure and the hints to upcoming improvements that will allow greater interop with .NET (just one stumbling block that is promised to be soon removed). Every product has it's problems and VFP definately has more than its share, but the tool is solid, mature and does what it does with amazing efficiency and speed - couple that with the per seat license cost of distributing data centric applciations with VFP ($0.00)... it can't be discounted as the blind leading the blind. There are a number of areas where VFP cannot be beat or matched by any other tool MS has available, so the hype about its impending demise is grossly exaggerated (and has been for many years now).

Developing applications in .NET myself, I think VS is a wonderful tool and it's getting better all the time. But, it's a relatively young development platform and has a number of drawbacks that MS and the developers using it are going to have to work out along the way. I could list them, but anyone who has used .NET for any amount of time could rattle off a list as quickly as I can. As I said, every tool has its own set of problems and to say that .NET (not that you did in this post) doesn't have any is to show complete ignorance... just as saying that VFP doesn't have any is ignorant.

VFP certainly has a perception problem and is probably why disparaging comments about it are met with such vehemence at times in a VFP forum. It is perpetuating a major problem and one that disturbs a huge portion of the VFP community were they honest about it. However, things are definately looking up, and I am much more encouraged by VFP 9 and the recent hints that Ken Levy has dropped regarding it's future than I have been for some time. Granted, when you see a number of lackluster VFP versions released and MS has all but denied the existence of VFP for a number of years, it doesn't take much to become somewhat encouraged about its future. VFP 9 is anything but lackluster and most developing in it will be quick to tell you that indeed things are looking up.