I just think it's too bad that the greater technology community isn't directed by the latest research, but by the latest hype; the marketing spin doctors preach the latest "word" that will bring salvation, but it is salvation for the corporation ... instructions emanate from the marketing choir for the faithful to proceed not in the direction which benefits them (though they may believe it's so), but in the direction which will benefit the corporation the most.

And the most profit is usually obtained by a complete change in product lines.

Even more amazing to me is that the vast majority of consumers actually believe what they're told and think how they're directed to think, and if they're told (via exclusion) that Foxpro is not "the direction," then they obey.

Funny, how I once actually believed that the corporations ought to follow the will of the customer, and not the other way around.

I don’t mourn the eventual death of the Fox; they’ve been threatening it for years. Once, I think version 5 was to have been the last. What I ponder is this: what would have happened if only it had been picked up by the universities, what if the average person wasn’t led astray by someone telling then it’s “just xBase.” After all, Foxpro is an amazing piece of software, but it is too technical to be received by a wider audience as are BASIC and Access and the like, and too widely dispersed to be received by the elite. Like the disappearance of the “middle class” in America, it fits neither in the top nor the bottom, and is abhorred by both.

Maybe it was doomed from the start, but it’s been a good ride.