John;

I agree with all your comments. Jack of all trades master of none! You have to make a business decision and either attempt to be all things to all people or an expert in one field. It is best for most people to fall somewhere in between those extremes! :)

Tom


>Rod,
>
>>>Here's my take.... A lot of developers say... I choose the right tool for the job. That statement implies they have more than one tool in the toolbox. Could you see a diverse toolset as a diverse set of options ?
>
>Lets be clear: I am disagreeing with the notion that "he with the most options wins", not with the idea that having more than one skill has value.
>
>The fact is that winners specialize. They don't go for the largest toolkit; they target. Two of the posters in this thread, for example, boast of success attributed to abandoning VFP in favor of dotNET. Equally there are those who claim success from using VFP exclusively. There are also some who achieve success by offering both. However, I've yet to see anybody claiming success because they offer delphi, Java, Python, VFP, VB, C#, C++, Oracle Forms, SAP and a list a mile long of other technologies. I've seen a few CVs like that from people who apparently believe that "he with the most options wins" but IME nobody believes it. ;-) The long list of options has no association with quality or success in real life.
>
>Your own company is an example of specialization. Your offering has been honed down to 4 bullet points. If a huge list of options were a useful goal, Web Design, Javascript and a host of other options would swell your list. Which would diminish your market position as a specialist, reducing the value of your proposition. You know I'm right.