Joel

I've made this speech before, and I'll make it again... sorry.

I am really upset with the fact that MS has provided no migration path for a discontinued VFP. They could have easily spent some time making the transition to .NET a little easier by providing a conversion program for forms and reports. A google search will return an app that supposedly converts VFP forms. Not sure how good it is, but MS should be the one providing this tool.

What guarantee do you have that MS won't dump .NET for the next "great" platform when they feel like it and then where does all your .NET experience go? I'm a realist, so I really don't expect that to happen, but I really didn't think MS would dump VFP without some kind of a migration to something. They really set us up...

While .NET might be the right choice for companies developing apps for mid-size to enterprise companies, I'm not sure it's the ONLY choice for small to mid-size. Especially, when you consider you are locking yourself into Windows at the same time. Five years ago I would have been the last one to say I'd be running Windows on a Mac, but here I am doing it and loving every minute of it. And now that I'm using OS X on a day-to-day basis, I'm no longer the Windows fan that I used to be. Let's just say, I've seen the light, and it's not Microsoft. Apple's market share is on the rise and with the reviews of Vista, whose to say what will happen to OSX's market share in another 10 years. Just take a look at the browser situation.... whose using Firefox as their default browser? I know I am! How does an open source browser suddenly steal the thunder from the world's largest software company?

I spent some time looking at Access 2007 and can't help but notice the migration of VFP features to that program. If you look at the top 10 features added in Access 2007, one of them is the "Wait Window". Supposedly, Access is now the only other app that has a "Wait Window". Coincidence or is Access going to become the new VFP? Everyone knows that Bill G. won't let Access die because he was a basic guru. Maybe the space occupied by VFP and Access was too small for two of them and Access won out.

Take a look at this commercial Access 2007 app and see if it doesn't remind you of a VFP app... http://www.pcesoft.com/iq2000.html

I'm not Access wouldn't be a better option for midsize apps ... familiar Office interface and will certainly ride the coat tails of improvements made in the Office Suite. Of course, you still have to fight the IT pros who will say "It's a what app?". But hey, if you can develop the front end in Access and use SQL Server Express as the backend, maybe you'll be ahead of the game than trying tackle the learning curve of .NET.

I don't think there is any question that VFP apps will run for at least 5 years after MS stops support it... perhaps even longer. In the mean time, we need both a short term alternative... perhaps Access ... and a long term alternative... perhaps .NET or something else. By making .NET the long-term alternative, it allows time for someone to jump in and introduce something that will make development that much easier.

It's funny. For the last half dozen years, I've felt that VFP provided us with an edge over any other development system out there. If we jump to .NET, we not only lose that edge, but will be playing catch up for years to come. I'm looking for something that will re-instate that edge over what everyone else is using. Right now, I just can't find it, but I'm going to take a hard look at Access before I jump to .NET.


>John,
>
>I think vertical market and shrink wrap software makers will be some of the final holdouts for converting to new technology, simply because we have such a large investment in existing code. Win32 is still king right now and the pressure is on to create new features, not move to the latest technology. "Look at me, I'm .NET!" doesn't sell a lot of software in my neck of the woods. Even Microsoft hasn't moved all of their business applications to .NET yet, although I imagine they are working on it. It can be a huge effort for any size company.
>
>At the same time, I think it is wise to learn about the newer technologies, even if it's just tinkering. Eventually, current VFP capabilities will not be acceptable in the marketplace, in the same way DOS and Windows 3.1 apps would be a hard sell right now. As next generation user interfaces like WPF become more popular, you don't want your app to look pale by comparison. Maybe by then VFPX will have comparable native controls for us or Etecnologia will have completed the .NET compiler. Still, I like to keep an eye on other technologies and see how well they work with VFP. I plan for that to be a common theme on my new blog (http://weblogs.foxite.com/joel_leach/).
>
>Bottom line: No one knows your customers, your market, or your technology needs better than you do. There's a lot of uncertainty since Microsoft decided to stop development on VFP, but if/when the time comes to make a change, you'll know it.
>
>>Joel
>>
>>You are a breadth of fresh air if for no reason other than you face the same situation that I do. I have a software product that is in it's 24th year and is very much vertical. We have updated this product every year and added new features and reports. There are literally over a hundred reports in our application when you consider all the permutations.
>>
>>Our users are no different than yours... they don't care what it's written in, they only care if it works, how fast it does what it's supposed to do, and how easy it is to use.
>>
>>With only 3-4 programmers, we can't take months, years, whatever to learn a technology like .NET just so we can say that we are using the latest and greatest. Not without first knowing that it will allow us to do some things that we can't do right now in VFP. I haven't heard anyone say that yet.
>>
>>Sitting on your laurels may be the best advice as of right now.
>>
>>>John,
>>>
>>>Therein lies the problem. There is no other VFP, nor is there currently an easy migration path to something else. You can imagine why that might be upsetting. What you can do is exactly what you are doing: start examining the various technologies out there and determine the best path based on your needs.
>>>
>>>Personally, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach. VFP is still a viable platform for us and will continue to be for some time. As a vertical market provider, our clients are clamoring for new features, not a new platform. We have a 25 year investment in our code base, and we can't afford to take two or more years off to rewrite it in something else. There's going to have to be some kind of migration path. I'm interested to see how close Etecnologia can get to their goal of 100% compatibility with Fox. We also have the option of putting a shiny new WPF/Silverlight/Whatever (if not GDIPlusX) front end on our Fox app, so it looks the part. Fortunately, we have time to see how things go, so no rush.
>>>