Jack

The biggest advantage of VB used to be its accesability. But I see in the May VB Developer that as VB becomes more and more complex, people are bemoaning the loss of accessability. Some even wonder what "the next VB" (a paradigm shift that opens IT up again) will be. The Editor, interestingly, wonders what tool MS will use to bring OO to the masses and suggests that it won't be VB. It seems he never heard of VFP.<g>

As for Java: vendors in every direction are pushing the Java envelope at a huge pace. After less than 2 years we are seeing Java UI's that match or surpass other environments that have been around a lot longer. I would quote JBuilder, Supercede, Visual Cafe2.01 and VisualAge as Java tools released right now whose UI is as good as or better than the current releases of other tools like VB or VFP. This is going to keep happening and MS is not stupid, they are doing it too.

IMHO choosing Java is a very, very good way to be sure that your development environment does not fall behind. With Java, if your supplier lets you down or holds you hostage to their own benefit, you can say "bye bye" for very low cost. You could always do that, but only if you learnt another language or competing proprietary standard- a high cost. But Java environments are similar enough these days to allow chopping and changing and surveys show that many companies use more than one Java tool for differnt needs. This is so good for us, it turns us back into "customers" of the vendor instead of vassals.

As you point out, Java also allows you to compile to fast native executables that are starting to match C++ for speed in some tests.

MS is pouring a lot into Java and I expect it will be the golden child in VS98, possibly even eclipsing VB because the market will be so interested.

Regards

JR