>>>IP protection – sad news … :( I believe that a WinDev application can be reversed. I have not delved into this topic and cannot speak to it categorically and might even be wrong but I have read somewhere that at the end of the day WinDev apps are pseudo or interpretative or semi-compiled or whatever the right term is. The usual solutions were offered which effectively came down to EXE wrappers. I cannot be 100% sure about this topic though so don’t take my word for it.
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>Having taken a particular interest for some years, IMHO the wrapper protections are irrelevant if the code has to be unpacked as un-obfuscated IL. So this would be an issue if there's strict protection obligation. Just quietly: do look into this, since there are consultants out there earning a fortune conducting security audits that embarrass software vendors, especially in jurisdictions with GDPR obligations.

I will dig into it and get back on this.


>>>The reason we did not delve into this topic is because at the same time as starting to re-write our apps tools like 2X/Parallels and TSPlus, combined with significant increases in internet bandwidth and low cost servers, became realistic delivery options. We switched all our clients from onsite installs to 2X/Parallels and TSPlus which resulted in serious cost savings on installations and support AND a huge positive feedback from corporate IT departments who were, quite frankly, sick of 3rd party vendors installing their databases and systems on their network servers, having to manage end-users desktop icons, running setup packages, etc. Now we can just give anyone anywhere in the world a login and they have access to our applications via any standard browser either running inside a browser tab or external to the browser mimicking a desktop app!! It was a huge game changer for us. Of course, I realize this might not work for everyone but, thankfully, it did for us.
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>Got it, though that's not a WinDev advantage it's a Cloud advantage, wouldn't you say?

Yes, of course, it's a cloud thing. Just explaining why we didn’t get bothered by whether EXE reversing was possible since we never let the EXE outside our own servers which we secure.


>>>I am not arguing for WinDev. I am arguing that modern development tools bring so much PFT to the table that to ignore them and stick with VFP is at best short-sighted from a business POV.
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>But has anybody advocated that? Others have made the point that if the business model is T/S or browser, VFP can produce the same HTML5 and Bootstrap or whatever as other tools. If the argument is that WinDev is much better at HTML5 or does it without add-ons, then definitely interested in that.

The discussion for me started with claims that nothing is better than VFP. Decided to just argue that, yes, there are dev-tools which are better imo and which I have tried to explain why in quite a lot of detail.


>>>If one argues that VFP can be combined with other tools like C++ or JavaScript or CSS or PHP or whatever then effectively you are saying the same thing – you are still learning new development tools but hanging onto VFP as well.
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>If you mean VFP C++ Compiler, you don't need to learn C++. The tool converts your work into C++ code that uses standard VC++ MAKE to generate the dll. My interest is (for example) that the x64 Compiler uses VC++10 or greater, whereas VFP is still on V7 that was released in 2002 and still works fine today with millions of apps depending on it, but who knows tomorrow.

No I mean if one argues that VFP plus something else e.g. PHP or JavaScript or anything then one argues for VFP plus learning other technologies that enhance your project and which is thus learning new dev-tools. I repeat, I am not arguing for WinDev. I am arguing for the PFT that comes with new dev-tools generally including .Net and, from what I have read here and elsewhere, Python. I am sure there are more.


>>> And it doesn’t when your IDE is no longer competitive from a PFT point of view vs. other tools that your competition has mastered and is using; at that point you're the one still using dBase II and the competition is using VFP9. And it also doesn’t make sense when you start to take a longer term view of your business, imho.
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>Agreed on the IDE, which is the point made by people like Rick Strahl who have advocated Visual Studio for VFP West Wind projects for many years now. For the rest: I'll take another look at WinDev, though we have paid an absolute fortune over the years looking at options, even moving to Java at one point and VFP actually has out-survived them all, even options that carry the same name but would have required multiple total rewrites.

I know for a fact that we coming from VFP are more productive in WinDev in all respects. There is nothing we can’t do in WinDev which I could in VFP but there are many things which I can do in WinDev only which you can’t do in VFP only - at least with my skill set :) - but it requires some effort, naturally, to become proficient in a new dev-tool.