>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...

At one point MS "asked" "the community" if "we" wanted VFP to become a .Net language. The general, near-unanimous consensus/answer was "No". This is extremely ironic, but the reasons all boiled down to a desire to preserve VFP's "competitive edge", which would be lost by turning VFP into a .Net language. Some of the reasons cited:

- loss of the integrated query language - replacement with ADO.NET, which at the time was in its relative infancy and had significant limitations from the POV of VFP developers

- loss of various language features such as loose typing, macro expansion etc. Fundamentally, VFP would have become "just another .Net language"; there would be no reason to use it instead of C#, VB.Net etc.

- lack of high-productivity frameworks in .Net. In VFP we were/are blessed with quite a few: VFE, MM, VFX, ProMatrix, ...

- fear that the above changes (amongst others) would mean that existing VFP apps would have to be rewritten to run in VFP.Net; they wouldn't "just recompile" as we've been used to when migrating from VFP5 to 6 to 7 etc. In that way, we'd be like VB6 users trying to move to VB.Net.

With hindsight, I think MS breathed a huge sigh of relief that the answer was "No". If it had been "Yes", they probably would have felt some obligation to provide VFP-to-.Net migration tools. This would have been a big job. I don't know which "VFP form conversion tool" you're talking about, but if it's eTecnologia's, my understanding is that one still has some way to go, and it's been several years since "VFP as .Net language?" question was asked, and pushing 2 years since VFP was EOL'd (March 13, 2007).

MS would probably argue that, by "choosing" to retain our "independence", we basically gave up any right to demand tools to convert to .Net. Then, they EOL'd the product, as they'd been threatening to do for ages. You might argue, OK, now there won't be a VFP10, give us something to help move to .Net. I bet they looked at that; but decided it wasn't worth what it would cost to build the tools. How would they recoup that cost? VFP users are used to getting quite a lot in one relatively inexpensive package: language, data store, report writer and unlimited runtime. MS practically gives away Visual Studio (it does give away the Express versions); SQL Server Express is free and has data limits comparable to VFP. For report writing, maybe you can make use of SSRS; otherwise you'd be giving your money to a 3rd party like Crystal. Again, not a lot of money coming to MS from ex-VFP users.

>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?

My moment of "seeing the light" came when I became rather mercenary about OSs, platforms etc. AFAIC they're all just tools; I want tools that help get the job done. Fixating on one or another is like arguing about egg tempura vs. oil, when you could be discussing Raphael vs. Titian.

Open-source has a nominal huge advantage in that the source is freely available; as long as someone is willing to maintain and enhance a FOSS project, it can't be "frozen" or "abandoned" like MS has done with VFP. The reality is that most truly successful projects have very few people with the skills and/or inclination to maintain and enhance. Most of those have a BDFL or equivalent; if you want to stick with the mainstream project, you have to convince him or her to help you or accept your contributions. Of course, you can fork a project, but then you're completely on your own.

>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

Hmm, I took a look at one of their animated demos. Looks like Office 2007 to me, not VFP. And superficially, it looks like all modal forms - at least, I didn't see anything that looks non-modal in the sense we're used to seeing.

In any case, my main beef with Office is that it's huge and almost certainly has a slew of bugs compared to any commercial programming language. I wouldn't expect high reliability from Office/Access apps.

>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.

There is currently a lot of excitement over Web development frameworks (Ruby on Rails etc.), but there is no guarantee they will "last", in the sense of being actively maintained projects. We've been lucky in that xBASE has persisted now for over 20 years; if you want or need that kind of longevity it limits the options a lot.

On the other hand, the possibilities of continuing to run legacy apps on legacy platforms are seemingly better than ever. Increasingly, desktop computers are being used as smart displays, rather than compute nodes, What they're displaying can run in a browser, or be a terminal view into an app running on a central server. The backend could be a traditional Web server, or something more exotic like a VM appliance OS/application combination running on a hypervisor.

Interesting times :-)