Well said, Charles.
I'm supporting clients on both platforms now and after a couple of years of really struggling with C# I'm finding it increasingly difficult when I have to go back to VFP.

One big deal for me is C#''s intellisense and real time compilation - showing errors and warnings as I type.. With VFP I always had a scratchpad handy to note variable or function names, etc so that I'd remember them when I used them later - no more scratchpads - no more "variable x not found."


Another big deal is the plethora of tools (mostly free) that have been developed for the C# platform by 3rd party developers. I'm using them constantly.

I've also come to appreciate the value of strong typing, which was a big pain when I started. I'm finding that my C# apps are more stable over time than my VFP apps, and that I get almost no support calls. I attribute most of that to strong typing which imposes more rigorous demands on me during the development process.
I spend more time coding, but a lot less time debugging.

From VFP, I miss being able to inherit or copy the methods of a form or a control. That has been a real pain.

It was also nice to be able to put together a simple app that popped out some totals or the like in a few minutes - we call them "handy-dandy's." I can't do anything in fewer than 3 or 4 hours in C# by time I set up the references, connections, blah, blah, etc.

I also miss that wonderful Report Writer. CR is OK, but for me it's nowhere near as easy to use as VFP's.


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--I admit the command window has something to be said for it, but I find it an easy trade off for good intellisense, snippets, a real test harness (which can also be used for a lot of the stuff I used to use the command window for), finding stupid typos as I type them rather than at run-time, a serious debugger, a compiler that actually gives me a clue what the problem is, easy source control, WPF, EF, integration with the Windows API and being able to Google for answers. <s> I also do not miss COM at all, especially when deploying.

As to prototyping tools ? Did I miss something in VFP? Or do you mean the data window? For User Interface in .NET Sketchflow is kind of cool.

Don't get me wrong, I loved working in VFP, but when I have to go back to it now it's like going back to FoxPro Windows 2.6 from VFP 9.0.

( Regarding the taking much long in .NET I'd really encourage anyone to check out the many many tools that are out there to cut development time dramatically.)