>>>>In respect of productivity let me give you an example. Now assume you have not already built your own classes or tools because that would be an unfair comparison. We want to do a clean-slate comparison. Let’s say that in VFP you want to allow a user to browse a table. You want the user to be able to do all the following:
>>>>
>>>>1) Sort ascending/descending any column
>>>>2) Search in any column using sophisticated search options like partial and wildcard
>>>>3) Search memo fields
>>>>4) Filter the table on any column using sophisticated options like starts with, contains, ends with, does not start with, does not end with etc.
>>>>5) Allow filtering on already filtered subsets
>>>>6) Allow long fields to run over several lines or force onto one line only
>>>>7) Copy the table
>>>>8) Copy a row or multiple selected rows
>>>>9) Copy a column
>>>>10) Copy a cell
>>>>11) Print the table
>>>>12) Convert the table to Excel
>>>>13) Convert the table to PDF
>>>>14) Hide/show specific columns
>>>>15) Move columns around
>>>>16) Resize columns
>>>>17) Change the font
>>>>18) Change the colours
>>>>19) Change the colour only of specific columns
>>>>20) Have all design and layout/column changes automatically saved and reused next time
>>>>21) Find the contents of a selected field automatically on the internet with Google search
>>>>22) Here's a tough one; allow the user to move controls/buttons/etc. on the window around, i.e. re-arrange to suit
>>>>23) Allow the user to add sticky notes to the windows for future reference
>>>>24) … that’s enough for this example.
>>>>
>>>>How long to build that in VFP? In WinDev you don’t code anything. You just drop a table control on a window, connect it to a database, connect columns to database fields, and all those features (if you want them) come along automatically. You can switch on/off the specific features you need/don’t need. This is just a small example. It is not whether you could build all this in VFP. You can. We did. The point is that modern development tools come with so many productivity enhancements that VFP has missed out on due to lack of upgrades. Now if you say well I have all the classes and 3rd party tools that allow me to do everything then fine. BTW, have you got a scheduler conrtrol? How about a Instagram control? Or a signature verification control? A Twitter control? Camera control? Video control? Want to know how your users use your app? Telemetry built in. etc. etc. Can you build it all yourself? Sure you can (maybe). How much time you want to spend on that … ?
>>>
>>>Crickets from the naysayers :)
>>
>>...probably trying to calculate how long it would take lol
>
>LOL

I actually have classlibs in my collection of VFP tools that do everything you mentioned.. some I got some from various sources, some I wrote myself. Now that being said, implementing it into an app is no doubt more time consuming in VFP not to mention harder to maintain. Obvious issue with creating a new VFP application for someone is who can they get to maintain the app later? VFP developers, at least here in the USA, seem to be more and more difficult to find every year. I looked at WinDev quite awhile ago and was pretty impressed with it back then -- sure it's much better now. Everyone wants a web app now that runs in a browser - to cover their a_s a lot of companies simply pick the most popular development tools that are most widely used and go with that just because they know they can easily find employees.