Walter, back in 2003 I received an unhappy e-mail from a fellow UT'er saying how he'd lost business because a prominent (ex)-VFP guru had trashed VFP to the customer and promoted Stored Procedures and NET. Apparently the customer got scared +++ and chose neither of them after having almost signed with the VFP crew. That's a very big and very real risk, especially since MS's "diwfp" treatment (damn it with faint praise) is now likely to be an obituary notice from customer-facing functionaries in local MS branches. For generic IT consultants, that's a "game over" issue.

IMHO that explains the comprehension rift here. People whose value proposition is "expertise in this or that tool" rather than "expertise in this business niche" have little choice but to follow vendor signals- preferably as early adopters to cherry-pick the best opportunities and earn revenue from those who come after. There's nothing wrong with that, just as there's nothing wrong with continuing to use VFP if it makes best business sense with your domain expertise and customer relationships. As always, the problem comes when individuals assume that their own anecdote is the only truth out there. No I'm not saying you did that ;-) I'm just saying that there is a reason why this difference of opinion seems to keep arising.