Kevin,

Thank you for your reply. I also sympathize with some of the bias you and others have been met with on this forum. I have disagreed with many a VFP purest on a particular stance they chose, just as I disagree with you now. I am proficient and know more than enough to make an informed decision about VS and the .NET framework, but the idea of going through my credentials, clients, and projects in the hopes that you will take a word of advice and acquiesce the slightest bit is a whole lot of work for very little discernible benefit. Ultimately, I have no wish to get into a pissing contest with you, there is nothing to gain for either of us. You are indeed a skilled .NET developer, which is no different than what I espoused in my earlier post to you. I would say more, but it would only further back you into a corner that I have absolutely no wish for you to be in in the first place. Just as I have nothing to prove, neither do you... not because we both don't have valid points that deserve earnest consideration, but because the other side is unwilling to budge and unwilling to let go of the bias that is responsible for many a clouded judgement these days.

In the end, developers far too often cling to a single technology, framework, or language that is geared toward a particular paradigm that they have become comfortable with to the exclusion of all else and all reason. This unfortunately happens no matter which side of the fence you may find yourself currently standing on. It is simple enough to see and the cause is equally simple... that which we have invested the most in is that which is most precious to us. I attempt to mitigate that as much as possible in my professional and personal life, but sometimes passion is unavoidable. And, admittedly it sometimes takes a certain level of passion to make certain things possible. It is perhaps in this respect that it is useful, worthwhile, and even admirable. If no one had ever flown in the face of all reason, where would we be?

Good luck to you Kevin and I hope that business is good for you (I mean that). Keep helping to improve the .NET framework and Microsoft's IDEs for it, and continue showing others the possibilities of it. Visual FoxPro will be taking advantage of that immense body of work that is the .NET framework in the near future using interop, and I'm very excited about that as I have already posted many times over in desparate places including this one. One parting piece of advice (not that you need or want a pedantic rambling from me), pick your battles wisely and where they will have the most impact and serve the greatest good for the cause you hold dear. There are only so many hours in the day for each of us, so we must manage our time and resource expenditures wisely. Unless of course it is just a good dust-up you are seeking, in that case I say have fun. I'm too busy trying to take over the world for that. <bg>


>I took the challenge as I found it - writing an app in VFP vs .NET.
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>If Jeff acknowledges that VFP is in a deficit position, he is certainly welcome to put forth any tools and utilities to bring VFP out of a handicap position and place it on equal footing.
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>Additionally, if Jeff believes that VFP is unable to support asynchronous process or to raise/respond to events, then fine, he doesn't have to do them. However, I intend to implement them in the "demo" application and to demonstrate their value. Contrary to the "comfortable" belief that I'm trying to avoid a contest, I fully intend to proceed.
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>All that said, I appreciate you and John Ryan making my point about an out of box, "VFP vs .NET" comparison.
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>With regard to this statement:
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>I would no more have created the current mobile application I am building for a client with Visual FoxPro than I would have created the last data centric desktop application I created for a client in Visual Studio.
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>Unless one has production experience with .NET, I disqualify such statements as general lack of understanding.
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>It can take 1-2 years to truly understand what can be done with the language, the framework, ADO.NET, stored procedures, etc. I will fully acknowledge that it's not always easy, that sometimes it takes some "elbow grease" - however, in several instances, "digging deep" for a functional counterpart to handle local data or some other task has revealed other strong aspects of the .NET framework that I might not otherwise have discovered. One is not likely to gain a deeper understanding of the technology while taking a superficial approach.
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>I've presented at MSDN CodeCamps this year, and have spoken with MANY people who are developing different types of database applications: client-server, web, and even desktop applications. They're not complaining about lack of capabilities. As I've said many times, the "myths" and "half-truths" perpetuated on this forum are rooted in a psychology that is excessively tied to the "fox" way of doing things. One of these days I'd like to challenge someone to venture away from the friendly confines of the UT and post their theories on .NET on a .NET forum: I think that would be very interesting indeed. Some of the most negative statements I've read about .NET come from this forum, and in many instances from those with little or limited .NET experience.
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>As for your last point...I've answered over 100 .NET questions on this forum in the last year or so, and have even done some troubleshooting with files sent by different members. Yes, clients want honesty and they want to know when something truly cannot be done - and in many cases, they want someone with skills to make things happen, and experience to understand the difference between a perceived limitation and an actual one.
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>For instance, last year I published an article on techniques with the .NET datagrid - some were intended to demonstrate comparable functionality with the VFP datagrid, including a functional equivalent of a generic DynamicForeColor. I later received emails from people who said they'd given up on the .NET datagrid until they saw my article.
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>I've contributed a substantial amount of information to the community about doing "fox" things in .NET, and will always do everything I can to help people - but I have to be honest that I have increasingly low tolerance for hasty conclusions.
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>My twin-copper Lincolns.
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>Kevin