Jess,

>2. We do not know the life span of commercial framework owning companies, and >so the developer creates dependency on himself or themselves and not on >others. As I have said to Jim Booth, dependency is not bad at all, but >oftentimes, the developer tend to confine on what is packaged on the other >product thus he/she stops applying his/her ideas as it is boring and difficult >to know the nitty gritty of other's code. Dependency on others creates comfort >and therefore the developer stops stretching his potential and work beyond the >comfort zone.
>3. New comers are becoming in depth into real programming intricacies.

I can tell you as a small independant developer (one person), the mere mortals framework has saved me months, if not years or coding and done things better than I ever could have. It is nice that you work for a bigger company with a team of developers who can build their own custom framework, but as an independant, I need to rely on other developers. Developers like F1, Stonefield and Oakleaf are an incredible asset to someone like me. The couple of hundred dollars I spend on these products seems like a steal to me when I look at the time and effort they put into their products. It allows me to focus more of my efforts on on creating finished applications for my clients and less time on framework issues.

Kind Regards,

Mat Kennedy
Decision Support Technology Inc.