>no question, open source all the way baby: php/mysql or perl/mysql or python/mysql, even Javascript/SQlLite. much better investment imho
>
>OR just improve foxpro with new free open source tools from codeplex - add multi-threading, web capability, more reporting tools and keep proven stable codebase. Seems clear to me :)
Fair enough - on the first line - and I do not doubt you are capable of accomplishing - and enjoying - development with those tools.
I'm more skeptical about the Foxpro part. Fox will never (AFAIK) be capable of non-GDI graphics, integrate with the OS in a way that is more than a kludge, or seriously improve what is an extremely dated IDE. And, more to the point, whatever combination of "improvements" one puts together under those circumstances will have a "developer community" of about 10 people, no support, and no one with any kind of financial incentive to develop new tools or improvements to make that model sustainable. Can't see how that makes development more fun, but maybe that's just me. I got so tired of working in an increasingly marginalized niche product for so many years that it is fun to be playing with toys a *lot* of people use and improve. (as I am sure that is part of the attraction of working in Java, perl or php )
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
