>George,
>
>Just a minute, and for the rest of us ...,
>
>Are you saying that, in your view, (which amounts to fact in mine:)),
>
>1. to get VFP as a product closer to what MS, and the industry (quoting Jim B), regard as a mainstream product, would require no less than a rewrite.
>
>or 2. it are the unique features of VFP that, i.e. even if resources for rewriting would be allocated, make it improper as a mainstream product.

Hi Marc,

I think that JimB pretty much summed up my feelings. I would, however, like to point something out.

There will be a significant modification undertaken to VFP in the near future. Whether it will be in version 7.0 or 8.0, I don't know.

First, the version of Windows that follows NT 5.0 will incorporate both Windows 9x and NT. In other words there will no longer be Windows and Windows NT. For sake of discussion, let's call it Win2000. Why does that mean a significant change? Simply because it will not be a 32 bit operating system, but a 64. Already technical papers are available (in the October, 1998 MSDN library) on some of the internal changes that will be required in order to run under Win2000.

Now to engage in a bit of speculation. I would guess that there'll be a version that runs both Win9x/NT and Win2000. In other words, a product capable of running under both 32 and 64 bit environments. Further, I would assume that in order to accomplish this, that significant changes to the VFP internals will have to be made. As significant as the FPW to VFP changes? Probably not.

I do see it as an opportunity to resolve some of the issues being discussed here. I hasten to point out, that having "real windows objects" at the cost of losing the RAD datacentric development capabilities is, to me, simply not acceptable. However, if it can be done, I certainly would say that it should, and it would be in MS' best interests to do so. I do not have the degree of expertise necessary to say whether or not it can, however, some of the reasons why they were in the first place (crossplatform issues) will have been removed.

Regards,