Not sure which world you live in. Nowadays going with Microsoft there's a 50/50 chance your client will say - "we're not using Microsoft tools and won't let you develop for us with them."

For Web there's PHP, Ruby, Python and Java all of which have the similar levels of adoption as MS has.Especially among the younger, 'hipper' crowd Microsoft is associated with negative attitude, rightly or wrongly.

There are lots of choices. As a developer you have to decide where you want to go, since VFP is a dead end at this point. At some point it just won't work anymore. I think on the desktop that point's already happened with the lousy VFP UI support making it extremely difficult to build a smooth application that looks modern and up to date and works according to Windows standards. This has always been a problem but it's even more noticable in Vista and beyond.

If you're into building desktop apps there aren't many choices unless you want to go lower level to C++ or something like Delphi (which is also end of life now with Borland being sold off - again).

So, that leaves the Web where you do have a lot of choices. For my money I've already bet on .NET, because it's the closest experience to what I've worked with in VFP in the past and because it's very component oriented which is where I like to live. Many of the other technologies (Phython, PHP, Ruby) are more procedurally oriented which works but doesn't make for much reusability. There's Java which is similar to .NET in many ways but with a more rigid support system.

Those folks that complain that .NET doesn't do what VFP does should take a look at the other choices and see how well you fare there. Even bigger experience gap. VFP/xBase is a very unique technology and just about anything else will be different. But Different != worse automatically! It's just different but if you look at everything with the view that it should work like VFP when everything turns into a painful experience.

Too many folks with rigid mindsets I suppose. If you do software a little open mindedness goes a long way toward learning and improving yourself as a developer.

+++ Rick ---

>>>Yep. It even gives you a choice to do that in code, if you want. Whereas in CLR you have a wide spectrum of choices: you can do it in code, or in code, and then there's in code. In case I forgot... code perhaps?
>>>
>>>I'm not saying it's bad, just expressing how below "just whelmed" I am.
>>
>>>Just... it's part of the visual studio, and it has to be done in code. VFP is not, ever since VFP7, and it can do this visually since day one. Looks like a paradox to me.
>>
>>You're so hung up on this one thing. As others have said, and I have experienced as well, it's a non-issue when your ready to work with the product. The IDE has tons on features that improve navigation and workflow that VFP does not have that can easily offset this one small pain point.
>>
>>Anyway, there is a Visual Class Editor for work on a class.(See screenshot). Maybe you didn't know that. Most folks work on classes by code (I think), but you can just as easily add properties, add methods, set values with the visual tool, much like (not exactly) VFP. (Correct, there's no visual subclassing, but again, I'm calling "so what, no big deal" on that). I say that from 16 years of dedicated Foxpro development. IT'S NO BIG DEAL.
>>
>>I love VFP visual class designing. I use it exclusively for my VFP app (all VCX, no PRG). Sure, I miss it in VS2008, okay. But guess what, there are many things VS2008 IDE does that VFP does not. I like that. If you keep whacking on this one issue (or the next one you could mention) then your not accomplishing a thing.
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>>Try programming to an interface in VFP. Try renaming a method in one of your base classes, and watch it lose all the method code you've added to that method in subclasses of that baseclass. Try extracting a code block to a new method and letting the IDE do all the work. Try collapsing sections of If/Endif or Case/EndCase in the code editor to make thing easier to review. Try letting the compiler find all your misspelled variable/property names as you type rather than getting an error when your app runs. Try creating enumerations (easily). Blah, blah.
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>>Some things are better, some things are worse. On the whole, I like it better, and wish I could snap my fingers to convert my VFP app to .NET/C#/WPF and move on from there.
>
>There's a lot of comparison of VFP, on which development stopped some time ago, and VS. Now we all know how many programmers VS has and how many VFP had. Perhaps the comparison is unfair to VFP. Perhaps the comparison should be to earlier versions of VS. Perhaps we could look at the nature of VFP as a dynamic language and what that has given us and compare it to VS, which is limited in that area (for now). Perhaps we could look at how insulting it was for MS to push so hard for people to move to VS, while saying (about VS 2008 before it was released) that they'd "get serious about data" in that version. Thanks. My clients expect me to be serious about data like . . . say . . . two decades ago. A lot of people just feel screwed by M$ (and they were!) and are not anxious to jump on that bandwagon again. In my opinion, most people in this industry have a ring through their nose and the rope on it leads straight to M$. Anything M$ says to do, they do it. Anything M$ says is a good idea is a great idea to them. Personally, I will gravitate towards Linux and open source and will avoid helping the company that killed a great product for no good reason. I'm tired of the control they have over this industry.