>Rick,
>
>How would you make packake more favorable for example to the WEB hosting providers (among others). Using f.ex a VB script is supported by the OS but using a VFP script needs that we have to install something to their precious servers first?
>
>So c'mon yourself, it would be a great asset in many cases to VFP if runtimes files are included in the OS or Windows update routine, or do you disagree?
I agree with you that it would be nice, but it's not going to happen... It's that simple. VFP is not considered an OS component and the Windows OS people are still complaining about hte fact that VB at some point was part of the OS (still is but it's VB5).
The thing is this: ASP and VBScript are part of an installation. It just happens that the installation installs with IIS. It's a DIRECT tool that is part of the Web Server.
Where do you stop? Should CO\old Fusion be pre-installed too? Or Java Server Pages and the Java Runtime?
Regardless of whether VFP is 'pre-installed' or not you'd still have to fight the potential issues of what is VFP by ISPs. ISPs hate running anything they can't control because of the security issues...
>If 100 meg installation is not an issue maybe .NET can be droped to that level too. If this happens it would be memorable to see .NET customers countenance when they first install small and simple .NET application (they know it's small and simple) but get it to work they have to install missing .NET. It might be hard time to explain that ... it's all in the packaging....
What I'm saying is that if you need to install anything in the first place, then a 10 meg install is nothing that anybody will balk at. They (ISPs) balk at having to install ANYTHING on a Web Server that they don't know about. Most ISPs forbid running COM objects of any sort anyway. Even with ASP because it's a huge security risk as the COM application basically has access to the machine.
.NET currently is pre-installed only with Windows Server 2003 and windows XP SP2. If you have a .NET application today you can't count on .NET being there so distribution of the runtime is still an issue. Likely will always be an issue because as the runtime revs the installed base will almost always lag behind.
+++ Rick ---
