Traitor! <g>
Actually, from what little I know, it seems that Java is an excellent option, for several reasons; many of which are NOT present in Visual FoxPro:
Well-established
Multiplatform
Native support of Unicode - will help you in "I18N"
I also like the nice, compact code, in many cases (C-style), such as a++, a += b, ...
I suppose that to be efficient in Java, you should use some third-party tools (just as in VFP, you should use a decent framework), but I don't know what options there are here.
Personally, I will continue programming in VFP for a while longer, 'cause my main work is maintaining an existing system. I am aware that I SHOULD learn something else, but I don't know when I will have time for that. Java might be a good option in this case.
>I have a vertical market product. It's very good and as many others have said here, customers don't care about wich language is it developed in (I know the situation will be different if we would be contractors).
>
>After a couple months of careful evaluation we already have set our path for the next years, and I decided to post it here to get opinions or help others in some way:
>
>We will dump VFP not because MSFT has stopped development in it (it is a minor factor) but for two main business reasons:
>a) There is no posibility to have native VFP applications in Linux.
>b) No web interface.
>
>Now, for our market those aren't great complaints now. Our customers have remote access to their data using VPN and not much of them have the absolute neccesitty of using Linux.
>
>But both are unnostoppable trends.
>
>We are lucky that we don't have time pressures. Next year we will release the last big VFP release of our app. We plan to give it a 5 years lifecicle.
>
>In 2009, we will select wich tool we will be using to do our new development. We foresee that for that date the market will have evolved in terms of tools.
>
>For now, we don't see .NET as a viable replacement. We have agreed about using PostgreSQL as our new standar database and we can't trust that MONO will let us evolve in a LAMP enviromnent.
>
>So, we will dump SQL Server for Postgres, Windows Server for Linux and VFP for an unknown at this time tool (everything indicates us that it will be Java).
>
>We think that conversion time will be 2 years, so by 2011 - 2012 we will have our new Internet and Linux enabled version.
>
>Regards
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
