A discussion on another thread got me thinking about what I like in .C# .Net and what I like in VFP. The thought came into my head, that many programming languages, the ones developers really like, were not developed by the mega corporation. Fox Technologies is an example.

So why can't we have a VFP(xx) platform that compiles on the CLR, runs within the Visual Studio IDE? Why not?

Consider:
1. What if the legacy xbase commands were stripped out of VFP(xx). This version would not run Fox code compiled on earlier versions of the language.
2. The VFP data engine was omitted, but VFP(xx) was designed to use a backend, such SQLExpress or SQL, mySQL or VistaDB.
3. It compiled to an intermediate language that ran on the CLR.
4. The new Fox language remained data centric, within the above constraints.

THEN: Why not include VFP as a .Net language? Microsoft could do this easily. (ARE YOU LISTENING MS?) If you think about it, they kind of had to do something similar to get VB into .Net.

However, I think the opportunity is for a fast agile small firm, headed by a genius like Dave Fulton. After all, the CLR is open source.

Regards,
Don Lowrey