Randy,

The heck with summer in Seattle. It only lasts 3 months if you're lucky. It's all those dreary rainy months starting October 1st when the real work gets done.

I won't ever admit to the fact or even suggest I that I ever worked at Microsoft on the FoxPro team. And if I did I was only a second class contractor with an A-Dash in my email name. And if I was there at Microsoft I was only a spy trying to learn from the best of the best.

I believe that Randy Brown arrived at MS sometime before I did in the hellish hey days of VFP3. From the stories I heard there were people in the halls screaming and yelling and crying. But Randy was not one of them. Actually, during my tenure starting right before the shipping of VFP3.0b. there was still some yelling and screaming and crying in the halls. But again, never Randy. Randy was always the most laid back, coolest head on the shoulders guy there was. Nothing phased him and yet as much of a Deadhead as he says he is or was Randy was always on the job thinking and working on VFP.

Starting in early 1996, the original Ohio Fox Software team quickly melted away into Microsoft and became the Eric Rudders and Janet Walkers and others who directed a lot of where MS went.

Seriously, the MS VFP team went from maybe 50 to a lot less and one who remained was Randy Brown. And then came the Hawaiian sometime in that period. And then came the long haired one from JPL in the spring of 1996. Yeah, don’t let me speak only of a dynamic duo here when VFP from 3.0b on would really be based on a more stable three legged stool. (No puns intended.) There were other players as well who came and went, but it was the Trinity.

I hated Randy Brown (kidding) because I'd bring him some bad VFP buggy behavior and I'd beg him as a PM to approve the fix to change it, but Randy would almost always side with the developers (guys like you and me) who had coded around such behavior and Randy would say that changing the behavior would break working apps. I hated that answer. Hated it. But, really it was the right answer. But, if it was a serious bug with no workaround Randy would approve the fix in a heartbeat.

From VFP 3.0b on when practically most of the original crew left for parts deeper in MS or retirement, Randy, regardless that his title was not Czar of Visual FoxPro, was the real brains behind the product. Ok, ok, ok...he and the Long Hair and that Hawaiian fellow who ceases to amaze me and who I really admire his roller skating abilities as seen his video that might be on the web somewhere…. I think Randy and the Hawaiian worked both separately doing what they thought was necessary and they both came together as needed in a great synergistic effort.

Make no mistake, there's no way that FoxPro failed for the lack of effort on the part of Randy Brown and the Trinity.

The fact that Visual FoxPro has managed to survive far beyond the mandated ‘end of the road last version VFP4’ that a certain MS persona proclaimed on a dreary day in February of 1996 is testament to the Trinity.

Respectfully,

The Big Lewbowski

P.S. Ignore the man behind the curtains from Coyote Wells. I’m just using his email account.