Randy,

This is a new post on old news, but in re-reading it I had some thoughts on one of the comments you made.

> Certainly VS is not like VFP, but it seems to gets the job done.

Yes, you can get the job done. And for the bottom line that is getting it done, if the client can afford it. However "getting the job done" and getting it done quickly, easily, and cheaply enough are not the same.

Many quip that if it costs twice as much to do the same thing in programmer time the programmer will just make twice as much.

The problem with that is manifold.

One, how many more hours in a year can a programmer bill for that what he is already doing at 110% busy? A programmer can't work 4,000 hours a year. So no, you don't make more money.

Two, you can end up being a lot busier making a lot less per hour. How so?

If a small business has a 10% of their gross income budgeted for computing and an app will cost them $100,000 using a less rapid development tool or $60,000 with a better rapid development tool the result from the client may be "I need it but I can't afford it. We will have to do without it. We do not have that kind of money." AND THE DON'T.

What they are already doing without the app is spending 10% of their gross income on computing. The app, in a nice $1,000,000 a year small business is either an additional 10% or additional 6% of their gross income. If they finance it, not a happy thing, that will add to the computing budget the interest on that financing. If they cut other things ... that extra 4% of the total gross income, extra 40% of the computing budget ... may well be the killer that keeps them from doing it at all.

It is not a matter of selling them on spending more. For a small business to have a 10% budget for computing is very aggressive. It means they are serious. But, they can't just magic up another $40,000 for a more expensive development. They might squeeze and or borrow for a project, but not enough to pay the difference between the best Rapid Development package and VS .Net if they are already squeezed to the limit to get the VFP version. And I have found that VB .Net and other VS .Net apps are more expensive to maintain ... so this not only adds to the initial cost but to the continuing cost.

That can mean either you take a big cut in pay or not develop for that client and have no work. And if a programmer is having a hard time finding clients ... as sometimes happens in slow business times ... what does he have to do? And how is he going to feel about getting paid less to spend more time developing the same application in a tool that “gets the job done” but ... it takes him more time to do it?

Of course I am getting nice offers from India for programmers who can spend those extra hours rather cheaply.

Then there is another option that I am proposing to another tight budget client. He isn't “cheap” just is having to pay for expansion and trying to keep his debt down. Debt is real bad for a small business if it is debt to make the business rung but not to make more direct income!

Instead of rolling out Vista for their new computers as they expand and paying for Microsoft server operating systems with their seat licenses, Microsoft Office for the new computers, upgrades to Microsoft Office for other computer that have "too old" versions of Office, that nice per seat license for the mail server, that expensive web server ... let me convert all that to Linux, client operating systems too. Put Open Office on all desktops, it does MORE than they need, and develop the whole thing in Open Source tools. That option comes up with a total lower bill for the immediate future and for ongoing expenses as well. I don't get to use my nice VFP, but that is now dead anyway.

I understand that Microsoft wants to keep us VFP guys (and those of us for which VFP is somewhere around language number 20 that we have used) but there is another "bottom line" than "VS gets the job done." That is the client's bottom line and their budget, all they can possibly pay. If you go over that with "getting the job done" it doesn't get done or even started.

If I want the work, I have to figure out how to do it for what the client can pay.

And that is the bottom of the bottom line.