Thanks guys very interesting. Looks like several of you are aware of dabo and python in general. A little Java and Ruby too.

I have checked out the following:

Perl - two weeks after writing the code - I can't read it.

Pascal - Like it! Although, it appears that delphi maybe dying there is "lazarus"/'FPC'. FPC = "free pascal compiler" and Lazarus (the IDE) is a delphi rip off. Lazarus/FPC runs on Linux, Mac and M$. All of it is free. Almost a complete delphi 6-7.

Python - Love it! Ed Leaf and Paul McNett are making a VFP look alike called "dabo". Very good so far but has a long way to go. I wrote a Postgres interface for dabo. No MsSQL interface yet.

Ruby - I haven't written anything in it. But I did read about it. To me it looks like a little like Python with Perl thrown in. But the web guys are real excited about 'Ruby on Rails'. Rails (a framework) is suppose to be a very straight forward way to program for the web. But I get the idea if you don't do it their way - it's the highway.

Java - You have to write a lot of code to do very little. The desktop stuff is butt ugly. There is SWT and eclipse. That is a major improvement over straight java. But the web guys seem to like it - and now they have Ajax.

Gambas - a VB6 look a like on Linux only (they are trying to get in on other platforms). I'd say it's not bad and it includes more OOP than VB6. But in general I don't like Basic.

C - forget it.

C++ - Just rather have a higher language.

.Net - I really like visual studio. But it's huge. I have a friend who thinks 'Mono'(linux version of .Net) is the best thing since sliced bread. He has a very large desktop app that he creates using VS but runs it under Linux using Mono. No code changes. It looks like the only way to be productive is to buy a third party framework like strataframe or MM.

Where does that leave me - with VFP.

John