>Disregarding the fact that VFP is no longer supported, how does VFP compare to a language like Python for ease of use and what one can do with it?

I've been in both camps, and still am, daily running both VFP and Python. Though not writing much code, but using the app I wrote in both of them, which share the work to a point, and work in parallel beyond that.

Though, I'm not using pure Python, I'm using the Dabo framework, likewise mostly abandoned by its authors, Ed Leafe and Paul McNett, and likewise still functional. This way I have the controls I'm used to, and they have that unique gem that .net faked four ways and still isn't sure which of them to use tomorrow - the controlsource. Being written by old foxen, it works just as you'd expect.
For IDE I use PyCharm, which is a derivative of something developed for Java, but open enough to adjust for other languages, and I got everything - debugger, intellisense, an editor which complies to my rules and not the other way round, command window (actually two - one internal which knows the variables when I suspend my code in debugger, the other just raw Python console), a project manager, even things resembling GoFish.
Few things where Python is better:
- no historical clutter like formset, dbaseIV compatibility functions, DDE (which rarely worked, if ever)
- system calls are grouped in a few objects, so no need to memorize dozens of functions, they're all there; also no cryptic sys() functions
- easy switch between several datatypes - list, set, dictionary (a collection in fox) - you just call the constructor with the old object, say oMyList=List(oMyDict) and that's it
- has complex numbers out of the box
- string slicing, which also applies to list slicing
- help is better written, more concise and to the point; likewise the stuff you find on the web does not include any sales pitch and the guys on the forums aren't competing for MVP points, they are really helpful (this didn't happen here nor, AFAIK, on Foxite, but did on M$'s own forums)
- no Microsoft
Can't compare speeds, because I'm running them on Linux and fox runs under wine, which is not an emulator, it fakes the windows environment by supplying its own versions of all (!) the system calls, so it can't be as fast as a native app, and I wasn't able to install VFPA, so it's still VFP 9.2 32-bit, which also reduces speed. Also, anything with browser object won't work, the IE object isn't properly simulated, so many of the favorite tools are out.

My reason for switching was simple - I needed a tool in which I could have cyrillic text, and Fox under wine just shows that it's all set for it, yet it doesn't use codepage 1251 (cyr), it's all 1250 (EE latin). So.