>SNIPPED
>
>Jim,
>
>More of 'outsiders' making the excuses for the MS/VFP folks. We absolutely must learn to let them speak for themselves!
>
>But considering your response: Why could not MS (the Win folk, I suppose) give MS VFP folk the capability to sub-class the standard WIN objects to endow them with the 'missing' events, methods and properties??? Sure, this would not be the "sub-classing" that we app developers are used to, but it could be done nonetheless.
>
>Nothing is impossible, but there *MUST* be a will. I feel strongly that it is up to the real users of the product to give them that WILL, and that it certainly is NOT the product user's responsibility to make an excuse every time someone dares to dream a little.
>
>Jim N

Jim,

I am not making excuses, rather providing a possible explanation. I understand your position, but mine is not the same as yours. If faster UI is at the cost of more complex data binding then I think one has to ask what VFP is. Is it a database management language or a general purpose language? It, in fact, is the former and it should err on the side of better data management and forget the UI when the two goals are in conflict.

I also don't want to see the langauge get even more bloated with a bunch of functionality that already exists being repackaged into new functions and commands. VFP is already too big.

I don't want to see VFP become a competitor to VC++ or VB, those products exist and are readily available to work with. I want to see VFP become more of a database management language and I would like to see the focus of attention in those areas of the product. I would like to see events in the dbc for tables and views. I would like to see VFP better play in the big picture through support for COM, DCOM, COM+, ADO, XML, etc. etc., so it can interact better with VB and VC++.

I also don't share your position about VFP6. I find that VFP6 is a very good enhancement to VFP5 and it is about what I expected to see in a one version enhancement. I've read the wish lists and I find many of the wishes are not anything that I would want to put into the product (some of them are great ideas).

As for MS answering for themselves, write to Robert Green and ask him about these issues, he usually will respond.