Of all the replies in the chain down from mine, yours and one other make good points. One additional post started the idea of "what-if" company X goes out of business, which missed completely my point. If FoxInCloud were to go under tomorrow, it would make no difference to me -- I am not going to hang my hat so quickly on any one company's platform.

The one good point was the poster who wanted local apps for his industry to use in a disconnected manner and sync data. I believe he was in the medical industry. I do not know enough about his industry, but if such a need is real, then he does need a new platform. I would add that the trend is far the opposite, away from local apps and sync, but perhaps his industry is different.

I sympathize with your desire to develop and spend less time on monkey-ing around. You will never get completely away from all that however. Not as long as there are MS Windos variants, web server and browser variants, desktop variants, etc.

We have minimized all that with FoxInCloud converting our VFP apps real time into HTML and JS/CSS. What we could not get rid of we were able to turn into a one time effort. For example, color schemes: some look better in browser X, some in Y, etc. I had a good graphical-eye person adjust the CSS classes for a few different scenarios, and now we rarely touch it.

We can develop in VFP or JS for any code we wish.

I suggest this especially fo exisiting apps, which was the original issue.

It is a very easy business case to make to not convert a VFP app to some other platform via a one time expensive time consuming conversion. It may even, in many cases, border on an irresponsible recommendation. For a small amount of time and money, the app can be an HTML/JS app -- the far and away top choice for long term compatibility -- and add 10-15 years to a VFP app. What will be then in 10-15 years? I do not know. But this I know: conversion for the sake of conversion is an unjustifiable business decision.


>Tuvia,
>
>The reason I'm looking into an application platforms is that I want to focus on the real programming stuff, not on the stuff that has to do with 32 vs 64 bit, running it on all kinds of different platforms, having a development platform that actually is still alive, differences in browsers etc.
>
>With VFP I have been battling all kinds of problems like instability of different components working together for a long time. I'm ready for the next move... just writing application without having to deal with the headaches that are environmental in nature and have nothing to do with the application itself.
>
>Walter,
>
>
>
>
>
>>Why rewrite and port to a platform (be it Lianja or anything similar) that is a niche platform? For that matter, why rewrite at all? Your goals seem to be for a more modern interface, not a rewrite of your entire app. With something like FoxInCloud you can convert your VFP to HTML/JS/CSS and still maintain the ability to develop in VFP or HTML/JS. The only long term major not going anywhere platform right now> is HTML/JS.
>>
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>We are running a software company and have a complex database app in the medical field. Since VFP has been discontinued we are searching for another development tool that can move us to the next level. By that I mean:
>>>
>>>- A more modern user interface
>>>- Running cross platform or at least some tablets natively
>>>- A solution to upgrade our application to run in a browser.
>>>
>>>This of course without having to rewrite all our code or entirely redesigning (we are using a lot of VFP scripts stored in the database, out there on many clients) the application.
>>>
>>>We have found that at least from a functionality POV Lianja seems to fit us best. Granted, it has not been released yet, but so far the comments I've read are positive. The company behind it seems to be a solid company (as opposed to the ones we have seen in the past) and their functionality is certainly looking impressive.
>>>
>>>Since it is supporting VFP compatibility to a high degree, it seems very interesting as much code could be ported over without much problems (I'd assume) and we do not have to entirely retrain all programmers into a new programming language. The support for other language like Python, PHP and Javascript as a real bonus I think.
>>>
>>>If this works, we are willing to invest in this product. the pricing seems reasonable to me.
>>>
>>>My question is what your opinion is about Lianja. Are there any caveats we should know about. Are there any valid reasons not to go this way ?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Walter Meester
>>>Mellowood Medical