I think this would be a very valuable excercise. Please keep in mind the mindset of those posting against your idea before placing any weight on their comments.

Folks such as Jim N., who I can guarantee has never gone so far as boot up the VS.net IDE. Then you have someone like Terry T. making a comment that the .net market needs to be proped up.

Wait wait - wait one minute. Over a year ago the DOT NOT challenge was issued. If net is something vfp developers can use then a dot net developer should be able to convert a little two filer vfp program to a dot not analog.

What kinds of applications do vfp developers write. They write the kind that have to be delivered and billed to genrally agreed expectations. vfp developers write simple automated record keeping solutions.

The challenge was a little demo program (download #16575). When you think about it, vfp projects are multiples or shares of file and gui i/o services. So any commercially appealing vfp program would do - except for cascading grid appliances - which are not appealing. If not the download, then one of Sweet Potato's "easy" apps. It don't matter partner - as long as it tastful - what does matter is that the delivered net analog be "tastful" (no hour glass studies - paleeesee!).

The net advocates accepted the original challenge but did not deliver. the reasons were many and the bovine compost was deep and stinky - but the net/net of the dot net challenge is -1. When the dot net heads understand the product well enough to offer something we can compare to a typical vfp solution - then good.

We could get real hard core if we wanted. For example - a real project that had to be delivered according to an agreed delivery and billing schedule. We make a special deal and discount the project to a fixed cost.

The winner is the project that is delivered on time. if both projects are delivered on time - then the one the user's staff prefers to use is the winner! The winner gets 85% of sale - the losser the left overs and has to wear an onion around their neck for a week.

Find somebody - or find an existing net project - and let's get it on! All this frilly sissy techno-speak machismo leaves us sputtering in a headwind with two options - take the net challenge and develop an interface competitive with the vfp demo in downloads - or find a prospect that would appreciate the competition I suggest.

Sometimes we have to move beyond technical discussions and fish stories - and put up - it's the only way to know for sure.

Any takers? (... i thought so!:-)

Funny, I just went to Dice.com. Looked up VFP, a handful of openings (8) are displayed. Of which maybe 5 are legitimate VFP openings. One had todays date. Entered C# and received almost 300 hits, of which almost a dozen were from today.
It would be easy to argue that the market is more interested in verifiable successes than familiarity with this or that tool. Their aint that much difference from one node scripter to another. if a project needs to address a non familiar node scriptor - like net - big deal - just do it - no need to join a choir and move to Jones Town!:-)