I have to say, in defense of all of us who fail to see what you so clearly see (and not because I in particular use or admire .Net, as I've articulated), that Grand Conspiracy Theories are a hard sell to all but a select group. Now if you were to present evidence and reasoning to support the GCT, that would likely gain you a receptive audience. A bunch of "could-be's" strung together does not, however, constitute evidence or reasoning. That you have a strong feeling about it does not constitute evidence or reasoning. In fact, your insistence that this particular GCT is so in the absence of evidence or reasoning may reasonably be taken as evidence for a lack of reasoning in reaching the conclusion.

Hank

>>>>>>>>>>So how does .NET differ from, say, VFP ?
>>>>>>>>>It's in the philosophy of application. Either local compute, storage, communication, or remote.
>>>>>>>>So how do they differ ?
>>>>>>>>The same choices are available for both platforms.
>>>>>>>Look ahead, Viv. It's in .NET's design. If you can't see it ... I can't help you.
>>>>>>Why not?
>>>>>It's one of those things you either see and understand, or not.
>>>>And there was me thinking that the idea of UT was that people who understand things can explain them to people who do not :-{
>>>It works sometimes. Not always. "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
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>>Ah well. I've only been using .NET for 10 years - guess I don't know it well enough.
>>Perhaps you can give me an example of one think that .NET forces you to do that VFP does not ?
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>This right here is what I mean, Viv. I can't describe it to some people because they either don't understand, or won't accept the basic premise. I don't know which one it is honestly. It's like a real type of mental blindness, and it's something I encounter in nearly everybody. As I say, only some of those who are FLOSS developers seem to even recognize the issue. There are a few others too I've encountered.
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>.NET doesn't force anything TODAY. But you have to look at what .NET is, and where it's moving, and what its design philosophy is, and what Microsoft is moving toward with everything they have. It's nothing short of the migration of all data storage and processing to some remote device under someone else's control, and there's enough evidence that these data sources are being mined and used. And if not today, then that is the goal for tomorrow. These migrations take time to be accepted and implemented.
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>As I say, if you can't see it ... I can't explain it to you. It's not an insult. It's just ... I don't know ... it's just the way it is.