Jim,

This isn't directed at you. You're reply in the thread was handy. This is directed at all UT members.

Let’s look at some facts. These are in no particular order:

1. It wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft committed to the survival of the Macintosh in two ways: continuing Office for the Mac and a $100,000,000 cash infusion. Why did Microsoft do this? For 300,000 Mac users. Some say that it was just a ploy by Microsoft to keep a competitior alive. It doesn’t matter. It was still a significant investment.

2. According to Microsoft there are 500,000 of us. Note that number is lots bigger than the Mac numbers.

3. When I was in college 15 years ago, I heard “COBOL is dead” Guess what, COBOL is still here. 15 years later.

4. The rumors of FoxPro’s death have been circulating since Microsoft and Fox merged. Fox is still here, and IMO, is better than ever.

5. So, what happens if Microsoft does kill of Fox? We, as knowledgeable Fox developers will be in great shape. Why? No one will learn Fox and someone will have to maintain those millions of lines of code. Yes, some will be rewritten, but most of it will be maintained. (Refer to point #3)

6. If Fox is killed off, we will learn something new. It doesn’t matter if it is VB, Delphi, PowerBuilder, Java or something else. Rather than wait, we should all be advancing and learning something else now. I’ve expressed my opinion that VB is the way to go, but it is just that…my opinion. By learning other tools, clients will be impressed that you are keeping up with technology. This will especially help those that deal with large corporations. You can sell them on the best solution, rather than a VFP solution. If you don’t think this works, talk to people like Jim Booth and John Petersen.

7. At this time there is not a VFP exam for the MCSD. There is also not an exam for Visual J++ or Visual Interdev. I’m sure those people feel the same way we do. Instead of griping about it here, send email to mcp@msprograms.com. But then, follow up by getting certified. That’s really what will be looked at. The number of certified people.

8. There has been much griping about features we wish were in VFP. The biggest thing I see here is some type of security. To really make this work would require a complete change in the DBF. The data would need to be encrypted. Keep in mind that the data would then have to be decrypted. This would slow down data access. Then prople would scream about that. So, we come back to what I’ve said before: If you need SQL Server, use it. If not, VFP has a great data engine. The fact is, the best way to ensure VFPs survival is for it to adopt the technologies that Microsoft is touting and playing nice with other Visual Studio tools.

9. About 10% of Visual Studio users are using VFP. This number is bigger than Microsoft expected. This will ultimately help VFP.

10. VB developers were wowed at TechEd regarding the capabilities of VFP. Some of them will use it. Again, adding to our numbers.

11. As for the Doom and Gloom talk that has been going on here. Be careful what you say. The Utah Jazz wanted a rematch with the Chicago Bulls – and we see what happened to them. The Jazz are dead. Let’s stop the VFP Doom and Gloom. Let’s start talking up what VFP does. This alone will help the product. Stop saying “Don’t learn it. It’s dead’. Of course it will be with that attitude. People will stop using it, then it will die. Instead, say “It will be here and here’s why”. That will keep people interested and bring in new developers. Adding to the number of people using it is what will keep Microsoft interested in its survival.

Now, get back to work.