Keith;

When VFP 3.0 came out in Beta around January 1995(?) a number of the members of our VFP Silicon Valley group had a similar experience. We each ended up creating and rewriting our class libraries three times before we “got it right”. That took a lot of effort and was being done on our spare time.

A place I worked hired a very well known VFP developer/author who together with another developer came up with a class library. It had one library with over 200 objects. That was very painful! Just looking at the glob of classes to use was frightening.

Now to maintain a class library is a job of great responsibility. If something goes wrong or you need additional functionality, you have to have the expertise to resolve any issue with limited resources. You pay for development and resolution to all problems.

I got involved with CodeBook from the DOS 2.0 version through its last iteration under YAG, VFE, MM, and Visual MaxFrame Professional. Each one had its good and bad sides. Each one had or has a user forum. That is a good thing as you can pose a problem, question or issue as well as help others. You in effect have a team of developers working with you.

Frameworks come and go. CodeBook went its merry way, and Visual MaxFrame lost its main component – Drew Speedy. Will the authors of your framework be there when you need them?

There are many sides to the issue of third party versus in house frameworks. I think that it boils down to a business decision.

Tom



>>If you're concerned about meeting deadlines, etc, then I would stick with VFP. The learning curve involved in moving to .net is about 1 year to become productive in .net let alone learning a new framework.
>>
>>If you want to move into .net, I would suggest writing your current project in VFP to meet deadlines and then develop one of your other products in .net in your down-time. That way you can minimize the impact to your business while taking advantage of .net and the learning curve.
>>
>>
>>
>
>John,
>
>I agree with your thought process here but I think Mark has to ask himself if there ever will be a project without a looming deadline.
>
>Mark,
>
>Deadlines aside, VFP is dwindling out as a viable long-term platform. For various reasons, both good and bad, the developer pool is in decline and there is no momentum for the product. I have a fondness for VFP, it was my go-to tool for almost 10 years. But it is on its way out.
>
>My advice is to hire a senior .NET developer for this one project. Develop the project as a three-person team with emphasis on building up a class/component framework that will be re-used for many projects to come. If you want to use a third-party framework, your choice in .NET developer will probably dictate which framework to use.
>
>However, IMO there is no substitute for developing your own codebase from which to build future applications. It is worth the extra effort for its educational value alone. And of course, there are productivity gains even greater than using a third-party framework because you already have intimate knowledge of the framework.
>
>>>Hi,
>>>I would like advice on whether to switch from VFP to .NET windows forms for our development. Please respond to anything here – I am very interested to hear people’s thoughts – even if strongly contrary to my thoughts.
>>>
>>>Background:
>>>We develop custom business software and have done many projects, over four years, for our largest client. All apps have been developed using VFP (v.6-9). We’ve been using SQL-Server for about 6 months now and love it. The apps we’ve written are pretty complex. We are about to start a large app which we’ll be working on/with for a few years and I want to decide on the development platform from the get go. I am considering going with .NET window forms.
>>>
>>>Beliefs:
>>>It will benefit our client to have .NET apps rather than VFP. It will increase the value of their company if a major in-house app is done in .NET. They may want to sell in 5+ years. It will also allow us to use same classes, code, etc. if/when we do web apps for them. My future business prospects are greater if we know and have developed sizable apps in .NET. Being experienced developers designing, developing, and deploying larger apps will be much more valuable doing so in both .Net and VFP rather than VFP only. Even though our apps are top-notch, when people hear we are using VFP they look at me as though I said we’re using assembler.
>>>
>>>Real-life:
>>>We can develop these apps in VFP knowing we will do a bang-up job and meet deadlines, avoid bugs, etc. My client wants development to be as top-notch as past development and doesn’t care what development tools we use. Our client is very happy with what we’ve done and that is why we do so much work for them. I do not want to risk their satisfaction by going with .NET. Most importantly, we have a track record of successful projects. Long development time with buggy apps will have a really negative effect – big time.
>>>
>>>Frameworks:
>>>I’ve been told that it would be nuts to develop these apps without using a .NET framework. People have suggested CSLA and DevForce from IdeaBlade. Is Mere Mortals a stronger candidate since it was developed by same people who did VFP framework? What other frameworks should I be considering? Feel free to email me at sqluser@verinow.com if you don’t to comment on Mere Mortals or other frameworks on the UT.
>>>
>>>FWIW: Another developer and I do all of the work – just two of us.
>>>
>>>For answers to these questions, I’ve looked into my alphabet soup, flipped coins, read stuff on the web, and looked at, and even read a few pages of some books. I am still not sure which way to go. The advice I get here is guaranteed has got to better than what I got from my alphabet soup.
>>>
>>>Thanks for reading this far. I would really appreciate any thoughts.
>>>Thanks,
>>>Mark