>How many basic dialects are out there? Specifcally, what happend to GW-Basic, Q-Basic, etc. Who was/is the one clear winner - Visual Basic. As far as xBase goes, several dialects continued to exist - dBase, Clipper and Foxpro - each with both common capabilities and very different capabilities.

But that is a result of the lack of VFP's wide-spread acceptance (and no database language will ever have as wide-spread acceptance as VB). If lack of standardization is the reason why VFP isn't successful, it seems to me that that would have applied to VB as well.

>Also, lets remember that Bill G. both programmed and liked the BASIC Language.

That's an important point, I agree.