>>What language that you have used do you like most? And are there any you have particularly disliked?
>>
>>Just to get the ball rolling, my most liked list consists of C#, Delphi, and assembler. Assembler was the first one I learned (other than a little Fortran in a college class) and there was something about its austerity I really liked. Not machine language but the next closest thing. Once you grok the principles of assembler, nothing is going to really surprise you. Delphi was an elegant language I really enjoyed working with during its moment in the sun, a combination of VB's ease of use and C's low level capabilities. C# is the language I love these days. If all goes well I will be using it the rest of my career.
>>
>>I am not dissing FoxPro. It's fine. Just not on the favorites list.
>>
>>The floor is now open.
>
>In order of preference:
>
>VFP --my favorite STILL for data handling but missing the stuff of C#.net and delphi
>C# -- most likely will be my language of choice for the future - i spend about 70% of my time with it now
>Delphi -- best for communications programming a couple of years ago
>Ada -- i had to write a lot of military/government apps using this so I got "comfortable" with it
>C++ --if I were writing games
>Assembler -- I used this way way back in the old days when I programmed keyboards and other medical devices
>
>The other languages I had to use: RPG, Cobol, Basic, etc don't warrant a position on the list :)

We have somewhat similar experience. No Ada for me, and only peripheral exposure to RPG. (I started out with a mainframe software house which released an AS/400 version and had to hire some RPG people).

I would also be happy to spend the rest of my career using C#. The trick is getting a foot in the door.

In my current job I have found myself working with a fair number of VB6 and Access/VBA apps. The other two developers I work with have a strong VFP / SQL Server tilt and are happy to kick the other stuff to me, "the junior guy" ;-) I don't mind it at all. It really is just syntactical differences.

I may have an interesting decision coming up in a couple of months. This gig is a six month contract which runs through the end of May. They like me a lot and I like them a lot. It is the most enjoyable place I have worked in a long time. Great people, nice products, easy commute. Really nothing to complain about at all. They do a little .NET but the longer I am there the less expectation I have of breaking onto that team. Some Russians and an Indian lady, a tight little team. It could really go in any direction.

A couple of weeks ago I told my boss I would be very interested in coming on board when the contract ends. I included the recruiter who brought me in in the loop, since we have a standard 12 month no-hire clause in the contract. He is amenable to working something out with the client, the details of which will be none of my concern. My boss said I would love to but also said they have to justify every hire. He said the contract I am on was justified on the grounds of reducing the bug and enhancement backlog, which has already happened. Our current sprint (Agile methodology) is more like a stroll. So you can see it's up in the air. Part of me would really like to stay there. The main app I work on runs most of the business, very high profile. Every morning at 10 we have a status meeting involving the dev team and managers, VPs, and so forth from the user side. Not being egotistical but they love me to death. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea of working on the business side for them. I was a business major in college, after all, not a comp sci major.