Hi Pertti,

Nice (and though questions ;-) ). I'll move this questions to our FAQs for this effort.

>Hi Samuel,
>
>This is nice, thank you UT!
>
>What might be the most useful approach to get people to come on board with this massive effort is to first provide an architectural overview document, as well as maybe some (digestable) sample code so that people can get a feel of how this thing is actually done.
>
>Here are some immediate questions that come to mind:
>
>- You mention that you are using VFP language to write the VFP.Runtime. What does it mean? Is VFP runtime module needed to run the thing, or are you just creating a VFP-like language using C# or VB.NET or some such thing?
>
The VFP module is not needed at all. I mean our language of choice is VFP because it is the one most programmers know. You can use C#, VB or other .NET languages. We want to ship the source code of the runtime and what better sign of capability / extensibility that to have it implemented in VFP. I hope their language of choice to be VFP.


>- Can people use other .NET languages of their choice (e.g., IronPython) to implement functions and commands, or do you want to stick with one language? There are pros and cons to both approaches.
>
>- Do you need the full blown VS system to participate in this effort, or will VS Express suffice?
Well while VS is very good for debugging VFP Code (yeah, you read that well). You could use VS Express. I would recommend to use SharpDevelop, it is very capable and even we can Extend it in VFP. A future revision of our Tools will have some controls of SharpDevelop embedded in VFP.

>
>- What about UI, how is that done?
>
We are using this approach:

Control (VFP) embeds as a member a Winform Control.
Form (VFP) extends Control and embeds a Winform form.

>- What IDE, if any, are you using?
>
>- What is the business model? Open source, open source code, proprietary, ... This is an important motivator (or not) to the potential participants.

To be fair it will be a license like Apache or LGPL. So you could use for your propietary development.

>
>I could think of a lot of other questions, but this is just for starters, and I'm sure other's can (and will) pipe in here. The main thing is to have a clear blueprint with real-life samples and instructions and procedures, so that the whole effort won't turn into a free-for-all.
>
You are right, and we'll be publishing Code Samples of the Functions we have implemented. Because we are using VFP, to know its functions / commands is a must.

>IMO the first step in getting this kind of community effort successfully off the ground is to chop the BIG project into SMALL, easily manageable pieces (aka "baby steps"). It is all too easy to get discouraged in front of a huge undertaking like this, but if we can use the "network model" and feed small tasks to a large number of people in a controlled way, well, all of a sudden almost anything seems actually doable.
>
In fact this is more doable than what it seems. Because the .NET Runtime itself is available, we don't have to start from scratch, instead we could use the .NET Infraestructure to build the VFP.Runtime.


>But somebody needs to be in charge, listen to the participants' surely diverging wishes/suggestions/demands/rants/threats and then make educated decisions that people must abide by if they want to row the boat with the others and in the same, majority-approved direction. In other words, democracy has its limits, and design-by-committee taken to the extreme usually results in less-than-optimal results.
>
Yes, we need some order / I would dare to say a Benevolent Dictadorship. I really believe in the meritocracy, so the best ones should be leaders.

>That's it! We need a DRUMMER in this ship to keep the GALLEY SLAVES rowing in rhythm and going in the same general direction ["Galley slave" is a term used to refer to prisoners condemned (in an obsolete form of punishment) && in this case by Microsoft, ha-ha && to man the oars of a galley (wikipedia)]. Of course the difference between this ship and the galleys of the sold is that in this ship you you are free jump out if you don't like the drumming :-) :-) But I diverge...
>
>I suppose Samuel would be the best drummer here because he started the whole thing, so he gets my vote.
>
Thanks for your vote of confidence. Lets start this work, and see what talent we could attract. We want this to be a community effort, after all the runtime will be able to be used in VFP.net and in non VFP code, like other .NET languages. Long life to VFP.
>
>Pertti
>
>
>>Thanks Martin. We want to invite the VFP community to share the ideas of the most wanted features in the Compiler for .NET.
>>
>>We are thinking of opening the VFP.Runtime to contributions of the community, so they could provide the Functions, Classes and Commands they need and more important yet, implement the functionality we think we need in VFP. The actual functionality implemented is available here .
>>
>>Every contribution will have the name of the contributor in the Documentation of the function / command / class. And the Runtime will ship with source code.
>>
>>Because the VFP.Runtime is being written in VFP language, our community already have the knowledge to start coding.
>>
>>What would be the position of the community, about this way to speed the completion of the VFP.Runtime?.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hello, everyone.
>>>
>>>We just added this new category to the VFP Forum: "VFP Compiler for .NET", so we can centralize all discussion, wishes, ideas and feedback.
>>>
>>>Samuel, hope this help you and your team.
>>>
>>>Regards,