my .02 - all VFP apps should be changed to or in the process of changing to a SQL backend NOW (now meaning 1999 or so) That will allay the fears a lot of IT people, allow for adding modules and features in .net even before giving up core functionality in VFP and give a transition path.

DBFs are a lot deader than Fox. And VFP and DBFs are not at all the same thing.



>I am bringing doom and gloom so if you are a die hard VFP'er look away.
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>Our product is just like your. 3 developers a 15 year old app that gets added to every year in a very niche industry. That said, if you "sit on your laurels" and do not make plans you will wake up one day like we did and have to scramble to cacth up. We were perfectly happy in VFP until one day out of the blue we had clients asking for Sql back-end. That was no big deal we thought we can plan for that an do it in a few years when we get ready. Then MS announce the end of VFP and IT departments for almost all of our clientele came forward and started asking question about what language we used ( they never had before ). When we told them we will stay with VFP for X years, the first thing out of there mouths was, "MS stopped ( not is stopping ) supporting that product. All the cheerleading in the world for VFP will not change the stars for VFP. It will survive as a small app platform and very usable for very niche applications but its day has past ( flame away evangelists ). It will be like the 3.5 floppy, you can still use them but every year is gets harder to find a machine with a 3.5 drive in it and VFP will suffer that fate. Remember Pascal? There are still COBOL and FORTRAN apps around but try and write one today.
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>After 25 years of developing and going from C, C++, to VFP and now .Net I did not want to learn a new system of development I have kids to raise and other things to worry about and I cannot retire or change careers at this stage of the game. It doesn't matter what you like or want it matters what real world appearances are and in the real world of IT guys ( IT guys are not developers but they control the purse and wield influence from a non-development, uneducated point of view ) and managers who know nothing of VFP, it is a dead product and they do not want it on their systems. We tried the naive approach about educating them about the wonders of VFP but they are not interested. There is a changing of the guard in the IT guy world, most now are under 30 and never heard of VFP but every article they read in every magazine either says .Net or Java. You cannot beat that kind of media coverage ( just ask that guy from Arizona ). Yeah, there are all these VFP/.Net translators, wrappers, and tools that the die-hard foxers will hang on to but in the end they are only prolonging the spiral and hoping to stretch it long enough to get out before they have to learn a new platform. As soon as this generation of developers ( 40's and up ) moves on ( die or retire ) their replacements will not use VFP because it is not taught in schools and not touted as the newest thing on the block. Case and point you don't see many youngsters on the UT ( I bet average age here is 48+ ) but they are all over every MSDN and other forums.
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>Whether you choose .Net, Java or whatever platform you feel suits your business you need to get started now planning for the inevitable and be able to leave VFP within the next 3-4 years, definitely by sunset of VFP. FWIW, you may not like .Net but it will stay around and will hold the market share for desktop apps simply because MS has spent more money on it than any other three companies combined spent on their platforms. I have found it is not the C# language that is hard it is knowing where to find the already avaiable class that lives in a library of thousands of classes that already does what you want so you don't have to write it.
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>Doom and gloom speech over. Sorry, I have been accused of being openly brutal at times.