OK, you have a point. I may not have much hope for the eTec product but there is no need for me to keep dissing it. What does that accomplish? If others have higher hopes for it, I don't need to rain on their parade.

Also did not know you were signed up for two books in that series, not just one. That does change things.

>Hi Mike,
>
>in my partial defense, part of the story you may not know, or perhaps didn't remember. I was hired to first be the tech writer for the RAD book, and then the author of the screen builder book. For whatever reason, the author of the RAD book was unable to proceed, so I was asked to step in, which I did. It was a difficult book -- from scratch I wrote an event-driven, metadata driven framework for 2.5/2.6. That book was late, and by that time, I had no time to write the screen builder book. I have a lot of patience for getting things right, which at times causes others to have great consternation. <s> That's why I spend my time, for the most part, writing stuff that can be used over and over again. At least there's some balance between input and usefulness.
>
>And that (being dogged, being interested in the long term) explains why I am doggedly persistent about VFP.Net. The software language world is moving in 2 directions at once: toward dynamic languages (have you heard of IronJS? It will be joining IronPython and IronRuby, and will likely become another first-class .Net citizen); and toward functional languages that can handle parallelism (F# being the best known in the .Net world). Now, if you've been following dynamic languages and functional languages, you are likely to have come across the interesting tidbit that Python, a dynamically typed language, is capable of being a Functional language (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-prog.html -- this is not new knowledge). Cool, eh?
>
>Well, what does Python have that VFP doesn't have? And the answer is: not much, once you count in Execscript and & and Methods as object (which VFP.Net has, but VFP does not). So, in terms of where software development languages are going, VFP.Net has a chance to hit the sweet spot. That's worth supporting. Perhaps not waiting for: all the infrastructure work I'm doing will equally apply to (my own version of) the Agile Ado.Net Persistence Framework, but worth supporting so long as there is hope. And as my wife will ruefully attest, I am near-to-eternally hopeful. <s>
>
>Which brings me around to ORM's, and why they are a mistake. I started looking at them in 1996 (the first well-known one was by a professor from Australia, IIRC), and what I saw was that the abstractions were, well, abstractions, which by definition lose detail. Why would I want to lose detail? Could I afford to lose detail? And so here we are 14 years later, and yesterday I read this, from a DBA guru (http://blogs.msdn.com/buckwoody/archive/2010/02/16/code-that-writes-code-a-good-idea-or-not.aspx), saying that the abstractions don't mesh with what happens at the database level. Ted Neward's (I gather famous) blog post about ORM being the Vietnam of Computer Science (http://blogs.tedneward.com/2006/06/26/The+Vietnam+Of+Computer+Science.aspx) makes the same point (and a lot of others). I don't agree with all his points, but in general, the issue of an impedance mismatch seemed accurate to me in 1996, and still seems accurate. Interestingly, the Entity Framework has been described (in the MSDN introductory article on the EF) as an attempt to alleviate the impedance mismatch between data and objects. Oh well.
>
>Now, this bit about the impedance mismatch between ORM and database is pretty obvious, it seems to me. It is the difficulty in writing data apps in a statically-typed language that creates the need for some way to make having data classes in .Net more manageable that it otherwise is (and that, too, is taken right out of the MSDN introductory article). VFP.Net cuts the Gordian Knot, it seems to me, giving the best of both worlds.
>
>And when I contrast the problems inherent in ORMs and databases with the ease of working with dynamic metadata (those who have used xCase2VPM know what I mean, but it's hard to convey because it's so far from what developers are used to doing), I shudder at any prospect of being forced down the ORM road. The competitive advantage I provide to those who employ me is based on the ability to program primarily through metadata. Give that up and I'm competing with, well, name some place with $600/mo programmers, not entirely, but to a degree that is uncomfortable, not just because of the economic competition, but even more because I know it can be done better, because I have been doing it for 9 years.
>
>The real mystery to me, then, isn't my behavior, which of course I see as incredibly rational <s> -- and seriously, I think I have done my homework. The mystery to me is why other people, whom I don't think I am harming by supporting VFP.Net by my persistence, should be apparently upset, not about me in particular, I understand that, but upset at the persistence of a relatively small group of people who are hanging on for that chance to still do it right, as they see it. One usually sees this kind of negative fervor only when there is a threat, but what's the threat?
>
>Anyway, I hope this clears up your mystery. <s> I am naturally dogged, and my loyalty is based on self-interest, in the sense that there is a lot to gain (being in that sweet spot of programming languages as it is evolving), and little to lose (the work I am doing will be used either way).
>
>Hank
>
>>The mystery to me is why Hank Fay is so doggedly loyal to them. I honestly don't get it.
>>
>>Then again, I know Hank has patience. Years ago he was contracted to write a book on the Screen Builder for Hentzenwerke, part of their Pros Talk Fox (I think) series. The manuscript was eons late. Whil finally had enough and told Hank to get lost. He asked me if I wanted to step in, which I didn't want to at the time because I was working on a lucrative project. Steve Sawyer wound up writing the book (and did a better job than I probably would have).
>>
>>>Have you read this ? http://groups.google.com/group/vfpnet-compiler-community-support-group/browse_thread/thread/121abf96c598ef01/e9a02cdb2ce49ab8
>>>
>>>They were in one of the ut magazines - years ago - when they talked about the vfp compiler.
>>>It seemed like a waffle to me
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>While I bought their product early, I still find it amusing - especially after reading that thread - that people who don't want to go to .NET because they can't trust Microsoft etc are pinning their hopes on these guys <bg>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>Hi Cecil,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>sorry, I haven't been to the UT for a few days. The message was written by someone called JR1. The whole thread is here:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>http://groups.google.com/group/vfpnet-compiler-community-support-group/browse_thread/thread/1858112008af647f/f152aa0d54d0f018#f152aa0d54d0f018
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(And you responded to him/her!)
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Interesting link - to say the least