>>>I think that Whil is referring to development of vfp itself. But it's a good thing that you made the two comments. Personally, I feel some suspicion. Afterall, we are all assuming that Whil has left the vfp arena and is now a promotor of linux. So, what's happening here then? Is it a (partial) move back into the vfp arena? In that case, welcome back. Or is that not the case at all. I've been to the hentzenwerke website and didn't see any real details about the events.
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>>[A late reply, I know.] I obviously cannot answer for Whil, but I think it is fair to say that he has been involved in more Fox activities than he stated/planned for back when he wrote Message #878476. Yes, a new Fox conference does indicate he has changed his mind on the subject, but it is not the first activity we've seen from him. He has published two Fox books (New in 9 and Taming SQL) since he stated there would be no new books. He also got involved with Fox consulting again. Whil sent this out to Hentzenwerke customers back in September 2004:
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>>A couple of years ago I toured the country, visiting conferences and user groups, talking about some new opportunities for Fox developers. I had two primary themes: (1) Linux's continued maturity was going to result in acceptance on the desktop, which was going to lead to demand for Linux application developers, and (2) Microsoft's ongoing negligence towards marketing Fox outside of the Fox community meant a decline in the number of Fox developers, which in turn would result in long-term opportunities for maintenance of Fox apps. I indicated that at some point in the future, I'd be jumping back into the development gig.
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>>And that time is September 1. If you're looking for help with Fox development, or if you're getting started with Linux apps, see my new development website at www.whilhentzen.com ...
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>>I guess my point is that GLGDW 2006 is not a sudden comeback for Whil to VFP. If you consider it a departure at all, then he came back a long time ago. I don't think there is a need for suspicion. Whil is leveraging his existing expertise with FoxPro while pursuing opportunities with Linux.
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>Interesting... Wait for the 'decline' in the number of Fox developers and then jump in again... I just got a cynical thought about it. There must have been quite some persons at the time that Whil jumped to Linux who thought "well, I better quit this community right now, because it is dying at a rapid speed". OTOH, I can't imagine that Whil is really interested in maintaining legacy apps. How desperate can a person be? The number of Linux opportunities must have been lower than expected. But we'll never hear the true story here because Whil has decided to never again communicate with us here. Having concluded that, I think it is allowed to freely speculate here. If he thinks that we're talking mere nonsense, he can always decide to restart communication here.

I just gotta say, Peter, that this general (shared by most people) disdain for "maintaining legacy apps" is misplaced and downright silly. The only 'good' thing about it is that it crosses all programming boundaries < s >.

Sure, developing new state-of-the-art applications is more exciting. But in the right frame of mind adding functionality to an existing app or fixing bothersome bugs can be every bit as fulfilling.
And I'm not talking here about the REFACTORING craze, where essentially a new 'technique' is used as justification to re-write an application in the image of the new creator's preferences.
It takes skill, patience, discovery, meticulousness to take some app you know nothing about and keep it vital for the users without claiming spaghetti crap held together by binder-twine and only currently working by some weird twist of the fates (badly in need of re-write).

Keeping on topic... I'm not suspicious of Whil's motives at all. At best it all makes sense and at worst he made a mistake and is now repairing it.