>For me, the key is PACKAGE of features. I'm not hung up on language syntax, but things like a real command window, local cursor/data engine, dynamic code evaluation, built-in report engine, extensible IDE, etc, are critical pieces of the business applications I deliver today (and have been for the past 12 years). When this PACKAGE of features is available in .NET, I'll be much more enthusiastic about this platform. Until then, VFP appears to be the best game in town.

Microsoft executives for the developer division have been having me give various demos of VFP 9.0 to various teams within the Visual Studio groups, and all the demos include the things you listed above, as well as data-centric programming features like in VFP. I don't know when details of this information will be disclosed, maybe at the PDC conference later this year.