Hi

If you are still thinking xBase have you ever looked at Xailer?

Simon


>Robin
>
>I can very much relate to your predicament. We are very much in the same situation. We have new products to develop, but are sort of putting them on hold while we determine whether we should develop them in VFP or move to something else - something with a short learning curve and great flexibility, just like VFP.
>
>These are desktop apps and I've read in a number of forums that .NET may not be the best choice for desktop apps; and then you have to consider the learning curve...
>
>I've been using xBASE for over 25 years and can easily "think" in VFP. I don't want to move to something that forces me to not only think about the solution, but to also think about "how" to write it. I'm just afraid that with .NET, I'll spend more time trying to figure out "how" then actually doing something I can get paid for.
>
>I do know that everything I have right now (in VFP) will probably have to be re-written sometime in the next 5 - 10 years, and I also know, thanks to Microsoft, that I will end up having to pay for it. I've had to do this before when I switched from Clipper to Foxpro, but that was a voluntary choice and there were far fewer apps.
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>At this point, I don't think I want to put all my eggs in the MS basket; after all, look what happen to all those VB and VFP programmers.
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>There is no doubt in my mind that I want to develop cross platform and .NET on its own will not allow me to do that. If I'm going to re-write something, I want to make sure it's marketable to both the Windows platform and OSX. I've been using a MAC for over a year and loving every minute of it. Incidentally, I run Windows through Parallels.
>
>Recently, I've been looking at Realbasic, which even MS used when writing parts of Office for the Mac. It is strictly a developers product and thus far I've been able to find third party support for all the add-ons that I need. And, it's cross platform. The learning curve is gentle and if nothing else, it gives me a chance to get my feet wet with something else and gets me out of the MS bed.