>>Noam Chomsky offered a statistic that implied 23% of Americans beleive in "totalitarianism". That means the guys with the gold were dvined it - and that the manufaturer, and not the consumer, has priority.
>>
>>My customers are always right.
>
Really? What if your customer wants you to do something unethical or illegal? Is he right then?

First - if it's a demand or offer that you join him in the "cheat", then the only thing you say is "Go copulate thyself (The Anotated Terry: Verse 6:66)!, raise index finger - and present with extreme prejudice. Spit between teeth on floor and walk out leaving door open.

Latter, RSVP with an email - tell `em how much you enjoyed the chat!

If you are not bound to report it what can you do. Walk away? Sometimes there is a middle ground. A request to cheat is flukish and rare behavior in most shops. People really want to do a good job for their employers and want the best value for purchases they make for their employers.

Granted, some shops are filled with extreme dominion heretics. What can you do?

99.9999% of eveyone on the planet is human and ethical. It is our nature. A small minority - the ones we give all our gold to - are dirty as used prophylactics in a Juarez alley.

I have developed "compliance" solutions. All the data produced was required for compliance. The customer did not want to show or include some of the data. If I removed the feature - I would have been at fault because I was aware of the regulation. So - instead - I added check boxes and defaulted them to be "in compliance" and show the data the customer wanted to hide. The customer then had to choose not to be ethical. The system [still] tracked all the data - but the customer had to make the decision to cheat on the output. There was a technical justification for that feature - but "cheating" may have been the initial intent.

At the least, the design can allow them to also choose to be ethical.

But to your point:
It seems you are saying that because you and I have had bad experiences with our customers, then MicroSoft can regard their relation with us as we regard our relationship with our [bad] customers?

A "What comes around goes around" or a "What goes around comes around" kind of thingie ma-bob? Is that what you are suggesting?

Also, keep in mind that MS customers number in the millions. What one customer needs may not be what another needs. In order to satisfy one customer, another's need may have to be ignored or postponed for a later release. Developing mass market products is quite different than one-off custom applications, the typical market that VFP developers are in.

OCX is a "spin" off - hmmm. At the detail most of us work it seems to be to our advantage, and our customer's advantage, that OCX (and all their little intracies) would best be provided by the OEM that manufactured the tool that will incorporate them.

You can see the issues - can't you? A bug rears it's ugly head - the OCX vendor says call Microsoft - Microsoft says call the OCX vendor. By not assuring that the OCX components keep pace with the tool sets, MS puts the customer, the developer (that would be us) in a precarous situation. Microsoft is a monopoly. They have committed the ultimate sin. They have exchanged innovation and customer satisfaction for evaluations, acquistions and dividends.

MS OCX is are pretty bug free - the Third Party OCX stuff I've seen doesn't always fire as advertised.

Developing software should be fun at the level we work at - not a nail biter chasing dead end work-arounds till the end o' time. Should our projects sacrifice utility and sexiness for a narrow, yet convienient, paradigm?

Should we accept the fact we are lowly MS repairmen bound by some myhthical conformity clause in the licensing agreement to devlop dBase II style programs with VFP that always look and behave the same. Should we conform to the lowest common denominator?

Depends on your need, but keep in mind that ActiveX is a COM technology and not "strategic" to MS.

DANG IT - THEY'RE PRETTY COPULATING STRATEGIC TO ME - THATS ALL I CARE ABOUT - DON'T GIVE A HOOT HOW STRATEGIC THEY ARE TO MS.

I'm the customer in this relationship. It's my gold that feeds Microsoft. The BIG GUY in the Sky Mall ain't ear marking mana for MS (yet). MS's ain't feeding at the troughs of the pearly gates. They feed from our hand. The mana comes from you, me and everyone else on this board.

And that's the point. It should be your mantra too. I want to be treated like a customer - so should you - a bunch of VFP developers want to be treated as customers? What's wrong with that?

Do we owe something to MicroSoft? Should we be honored when MicroSoft treats us like food stamp applicants? Is that our payback for some mythical debt we in the VFP community owe to MicroSoft?

Hmmmm... is that air you're breathing?

Just kidding!

Keep it wet!