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>Learning .NET seems taking a step backward to me in many respects. I'd rather go for developing applications in SAAS environments where you do not have to reinvent te wheel and have to program a lot for dealing with the very basics of application development. I'd go and learn Servoy, Windev or any other RAD environments where you can focus much more on solving business problems rather than having to write and maintain an entire framework.
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>In fact we've looked at Servoy and it is massively impressive. But having millions lines of code and a rappid demand of new features and a booming buisiness made an easy switch an impossible task to do. Instead we are looking for experienced VFP developers or developers who are capable to learn VFP. We will be developing new code for many years to come. Not that we don't recognise there are more modern tools, but the investment to change is huge and the time that it takes to do so will cost us our leading place in the market. Instead we put our energy to move the GUI to the web and writing our biz objects in VFP. It might take years to accomplish that, but when it does we can slowly migrate everything to the browser.
OK, that's fine, there are other environments out there. I have a foundation in .NET so it's easy for me to advocate something where I went through iterations of learning curves. The point is that any Fox person looking to reinvent themselves shouldn't be looking "just" at enterprise databases.
You are fortunate in that you've been able to stay with the same organization that has made a huge investment in VFP and is continuing with it (I think). Unfortunately, others who have stayed with VFP have not been so fortunate. The truth is that if you "had" to find another job tomorrow, you know enough about SQL and databases.
As for SAAS, I personally am not a big fan of it. My major client is seeing that the Microsoft BI stack is more efficient. The BI stack has a steep learning curve but you can produce some very good results. But yes, there's plenty of SAAS work out there.
