>Peter;
>
>I have an original copy of FoxBase - sealed - just sitting there! Some day I am sure that FoxBase will come back and I will be ready! :)

I have an original COPY of FoxBase, for CP/M. I even still have the CPM machine, but I'm also quite sure it's no longer functioning. So I hope it will NOT come back. :)

>After you work with the Fox, you will learn many things that you will never find in any book. The UT is a great place to explore your findings and help others.

The UT sure is the best place for this. That I sometimes try to invite you all to go more indepth is because I'm sure that others later, merely reading it all, can take advantage of it.

>I love to use Visual FoxPro with SQL Server. It is a solid combination. I also used Sybase and Oracle, as required.
>
>It is to bad that microsoft did not promote VFP as it should or could have.
>
>I cannot tell you how many projects I created using VFP after crews of Visual Basic programmers failed! Getting management to allow you to use VFP was a big problem.
>
>As a consultant I had no problem using VFP and delivering the requested applications. As a full time employee I had to fight to use VFP too many times. A big part of the problem was that microsoft would tell management not to use VFP. Use Visual Basic!
>
>Just keep up the good work and keep your eyes open for the future.
>
>
>Tom
>
>
>P.S. I also enjoy C, C++, and C # Net. You can tell that I like to suffer! :)
>
>>>Peter;
>>>
>>>You probably made a typing error stating you have been “doing vfp since 1990”, as it came out June 1995.
>>
>>Not a typing error, but I should have written 'foxbase, foxpro and vfp', since 1988 to be even more precise.
>>
>>Through experience developers find problems, and it the case of VFP, microsoft sometimes responded to resolving them. We lived with lots of terms, workarounds, updates, etc. “The next version of VFP will include…”! All your problems were to have been resolved with the next release of the product. :)
>>
>>Agree fully, :)
>>
>>>Professionally, I used 13 programming languages from 1982, to support my family. VFP was the greatest fun. Too bad microsoft decided to no longer release new versions. If you are going to continue using the product then you are at risk. Either you learn its limitations and workarounds, or you suffer the consequences. Just remember - there will always be a version of a product called microsoft basic, visual basic, or something similar. It may not work well, but it is the microsoft standard.
>>
>>My code is filled with workarounds. :)
>>
>>>One company I worked at had a Software Quality Control staff equal to the number of programmers (6 each). The language of choice was FoxPro. As it was a product used by the medical industry, it had to work as a matter of life or death. We were very careful to write good code and understand the language.
>>>
>>>A company I worked for decided to ship product on a specific date, regardless of the state of the software. The president of the company stated: “Let the customers find the bugs and report them”! I then decided to look for a new position and did so. Six months later my previous company was out of business.
>>>
>>>I received training from all the top FoxPro/Visual FoxPro instructors, including those given by YAG, Rick Strahl, Mike Feltman, Drew Speedie, George Goley IV, and others. I purchased all the books on the subject, and created many test applications to see the abilities and limitations of the product. Then I went into consulting and made very good money because I was well prepared. If you check my profile you will see some of the things I have done as a programmer. My real career was in electronics engineering. I became a programmer only to support my family when manufacturing left Silicon Valley.
>>>
>>>My advice to you and everyone on the UT is to learn VFP inside out, and get ready for your next career. It might involve programming, in which case, attempt to choose a language that will be around for a few years and is popular. What ever you choose this week will be obsolete next week! That is the nature of programming and technology in general. :)
>>
>>Sure, there are a lot of applications of vfp that I have not yet explored really extensively, but after more than 20 years working with foxbase/fpd/vfp on a daily basis in small and big companies (and not as a database explorer with vfp's interfaces, but as a real programmer) I'm entitled to state that I know vfp 'inside out', don't you agree?!
>>
>>My current main client will need me for at least one more year. After that I'll probably gonna do/use something else, but vfp will remain to be in my basket. It's a love-hate relationship. :)
>>
>>>Tom
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi James,
>>>>
>>>>Well then, why is this not in the documentation?! It is very important to know this, isn't it. I can say I'm a really experienced vfp developer, doing vfp since 1990. But this has never been told or explained to me, nowhere, not in the docs, not in the Hackers guide. 'By-design' may be what has been told to you, but to me that sounds like a rationalisation, to hide the real reason: a design flaw or simply a blind spot for this when implementing it, in both cases a flaw they somehow didn't want to repair.
>>>>
>>>>Re-using the cached version of a previously instantiated object is smart enough, but of course that should not imply the re-use of any initial values.
>>>>