>The prospect scares me not so much re-learning a platform (done that before from VB to Foxpro to VFP) as the fact that anything I see written with SQL Server as a backend is abysmally slow when compared with VFP.
>So the question is:
>SQL Server (or My SQL) with a VFP front end ?
>SQL Server with a .NET front end ?
>SQL Server with a VFP front end compiled to .NET ?
>I still have FPD running on sites and running well, but they don't generate income, too stable etc
>Does this mean VFP will continue forever ?
>I have heard ramblings about an open source version? Does this mean Fox will not die?
>One thing I have noticed is that the numbers on UT are dwindling is that because all the questions have been answered or are programmers voting with their feet?
>Cheers, John

Hi There

I am not pessimistic at all :)

Knowing Fox is simply great advantage! You can venture in any of above and you will simply add more advantage to yourself. Fox should not be looked as something mutually exclusive with other tools and technologies.

Any database platform (MySql, MSSQL, Oracle etc) you obtain know-how just makes you just more powerfull. Knowing NET platform as well. But there is also PHP, Java etc.

Sucesfull IT solution can be actually combination of technologies. If you move actual
database storage from VFP tables to some enterprise level database as above, then you can
deploy ASP.NET (or PHP) as Web front end for some parts, while you can have internal VFP C/S app do heavy data lifting.

I see no problem with VFP at all. I still happily use VFP native tables which I am now
slowly moving to Oracle. While I don't know yet what I am gonna be using for Web Interfaces,
backbone of whole thing will be for sure VFP9!
Inhouse users will enjoy speed and flexibility of VFP/Oracle CS app, while web visitors will be gritted by nice interface written in whatever. (Oracle in this case is strictly for legacy reasons it could be MSSQL or even MySql)

Moreover for some apps I will be still using native VFP Dbc/tables. If scope of app and volume
of data is limited then I don't see why not.
Writting 10.000 records per year maintenance application, with anything else but VFP for me
as inhouse developer is simply waste of time/energy/money.

And no FoxPro will NOT die. There is strong community of people who love it and tryin to keep it up. But moreover, just like you still have users using DOS app, VFP apps will be there for minimum quarter of a century. VFP apps runs on millions of PCs world wide.
By that time, some other xbase variant will emerge as viable alternative to VFP. It will have OOP and folow known familiar xbase syntax. But this does not mean someone should sit down and wait for that.

Imo we should all learn new technologies, simply because technology/environment/business requirements are evolving, and not because someone did 'writing on the wall' for us. What You know (VFP) you know, nobody can take it away from You.
Don't leave Fox, just Go4More :)

Sergio