Thanks Rick,

You missed my point entirely. The BLOAT I was referring to is IT budgets of companies that consume technologies from the likes of MS, Oracle, SAP, etc. Have you been reading about SAP lately? They are having BIG problems. They are not the only ones.

Companies (that consume technologies) are slashing IT budgets and rethinking the way they do business. They need to and they should. This is not a temporary situation and it will be getting much worse. The USA is rapidly becoming less competitive in the Global arena.

I work at an IT campus where there are three to four hundred developers and only a small percent are US citizens. So, as a developer it's our job to decide whether we should remain developers.

>I think it's a fallacy to think that Microsoft is the only company that is bloated. The problem of rapid change is happening EVERYWHERE in the software industry. The difference is that Microsoft is doing so many things where in other places that same amount of change is happening in a more scattered manner - but the end result is exactly the same.
>
>As a developer it's our jobs to decide which technologies are worth pursuing and which technologies to stick with in the long term (which doesn't have to be the latest and greatest).
>
>+++ Rick ---
>
>>Rick,
>>
>>First of all, I'm a big fan and to be honest, I don't know how you do it. Do you have assistant ghost writers or something?
>>
>>You have been on the cutting edge of the MS "vision" for a long time. I would wind up putting a bullet in my head trying to do what you do.
>>
>>Putting VFP aside, I believe that MS (as well as SAP, Oracle, etc,) has created an enormous "bubble" of IT expenditures which will eventually burst - much like we have seen in Real Estate. Businesses CANNOT absorb / implement the technology at that pace. They are beginning to realize that the costs far outweigh the incremental benefits. For example, I work for a company with over 200,000 employees and I can tell you that there are NO plans to move beyond WinXP in the near future. And who in the hell really needs a "ribbon" toolbar in the first place. :)
>>
>>Lets get real here. What is happening is that new MS technology is being absorbed by declining percentage of businesses. It is happenning now and MS knows it.
>>
>>In line with what is happening with the global economy, this country will have to reinvent (reengineer) itself with respect to EVERYTHING. The excesses of the past (e.g. bloated IT budgets) will be NoMo.
>>
>>
>>>Uh, of course <s>...
>>>
>>>I suppose this should be pretty obvious to anyone: It doesn't matter which plaform you choose ultimately you as a developer you are dependent on the 'producers' of that platform and their vision whether it's Microsoft or some soft pedaling Open Source consortium. Regardless of choice you can get 'stranded' with old tech or abandoned when the folks in charge lose interest or go off to greener pastures.
>>>
>>>I think a lot of folks on this forum feel personally spited by Microsoft for discontinuing FoxPro even as its popularity nose dived years before the plug was actually pulled. I think you can hardly blame Microsoft for no longer wanting to support this product when even the lead loyal and dedicated lead developers were starting to lose faith and were rapidly redeploying inside of Microsoft.
>>>
>>>I understand that feeling of sitting on a sinking ship. I've been through it a few times in my career and it sucks royally, but I would argue that by the time it gets to that point it's actually a good thing to get tossed off the boat and into the cold reality beyond...
>>>
>>>+++ Rick ---
>>>
>>>>Hi Jess,
>>>>
>>>>re: dependency on MS, and MS controlling your future.
>>>>
>>>>That is so obviously true that I can't imagine how you would support the opposite side of the question. Ask not just the VFP developers of 2004, but the VB developers of 2004.
>>>>
>>>>Now, whether that is a bad thing is another matter entirely. Python is a great language; an argument can be made that of the non-Functional languages, it is the best conceived language (it should be: this was the initial consideration in creating it, if you've read Guido's writings on it) and is at least as well implemented as any of the others. Their PEP process, through which changes enter the language, is a model for all other languages to follow (but you will be a long time waiting to breathe if you hold your breath waiting for MS to adopt a similar process).
>>>>
>>>>And no matter how great Python is (it is one of the few official languages at Google, Yahoo, etc.), ISV's who sell to a range of customers from mom-and-pop's to mid-level corporations are more competitive when using MS products. It's all about perceived safety, from the customer's perspective. The customers at that level (and above, actually, in my limited experience there) don't care whether you are using an old-fashioned file drop or MSMQ or WCF or Biztalk (well, they might care if you use BizTalk because of the exorbitant licensing fee and the need to allocate another server). They are concerned about sleeping at night, thinking (wrongly -- the number of bugs in MS Products and OpenSource products is roughly the same; and OpenSource bugs average pretty much just as long as MS bugs in terms of time to being fixed.) that using a product built on the Microsoft technology stack is the safest way to go.
>>>>
>>>>So, you can make the case that Microsoft offers the most efficient development experience (thanks as much to 3rd-party vendors as to MS -- think ReSharper, think Intragistics and Telerik, think nHibernate or Habanero, etc.), and you can make the case that Microsoft keeps trying to get it right (I was told 4 years ago that it would be the 5th or 6th version of Visual Studio -- VS2010 is the 5th -- before VS had incorporated most of the features of VFP). If they make that goal for VS2012 or whatever it will be, I will be surprised and happy. Anyway, you can make all these claims, and support them in a reasonable fashion. But you can't claim that your future isn't controlled by MS. That's a bet, a wager, that you (and I) are making, that our basis for making a living, and in my case at least the competitive edge I've had in customized development tools, won't be flushed down the drain the same way that VFP and VB were. I think it's a good bet for a variety of reasons (the .Net infrastructure is so large that abandoning it would be extremely difficult), but it's something over which you and I and all the other developers have no control.
>>>>
>>>>Hank
>>>>
>>>>>>>Now that you're no longer dependent on MS, do you think you're totally free. No. You're becoming dependent into something which happens to be not an MS thing. And if someone decides to make use of MS product, it doesn't mean MS holds control of his/her future.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I also have a good grasp on PHP, but .NET is what makes us rich.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jesse,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I do not want to be rude as well. But these comments show you have not paid python the kind of attention it deserves. Even if you prefer to stick to an MS-only environment. Which of course may make a lot of sense. Python belongs to a completely different league. On a lot of grounds. Including non technical ones. The way the software architecture is evolved is both effective and, I am looking for an adequate wording, both convivial and vivacious:)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Regards
>>>>>
>>>>>Francois,
>>>>>
>>>>>My statement is not about Phython which I have nothing against. I just stated my view against his view of dependency on MS products and MS taking hold of his future just because he's using them which to me is not correct. Well, it's his feelings against mine which is not a big deal I think. It's just a 2 cents opinion.