>I vehemently disagree with Bill (sorry, Bill). I think the direction you take depends greatly on your role in IT. If you're a nuts and bolts coder, then, by all means, load up on your expertise in a single language. Be the best of the best, so to speak. If you are a consultant who's job is to provide solutions to problems then become familiar with a little bit of a lot and be prepared to subcontract what you're not familiar with. The era of the stovepipe application is almost over; multiple tools and environments are a necessity in an n-tier world.


I'm willing to admit that my view of the world is somewhat colored by the jobs I've had. Fresh out of college, I started working on a FoxBase/UNIX project. From there, on to dBase IV, FPD 1.02 up to 2.6, then after a year wasted working for the state, I entered the world of Visual FoxPro. I'm currently working with VFP 6.0. Of late, I've been dabbling in Visual Basic, but have not done any meaningful work in it.

On all of these projects, I was working either as a salaried employee for a larger company, or as an hourly employee for a larger consulting company. The point is, I've never been placed in a position where I've had to choose between VFP and VB. My work has always been in developing and maintaining single-tier database management systems for small and midsize companies. If anothe project came along which did not require my particular skill set, there were always other developers on staff who were experienced in that particular required skill, and could do a far better job than I.

If I was suddenly thrust into a situation where I was a lone consultant, depending on my skills alone to earn a living, then of course I'd have to broaden my skill set, simply because if I didn't learn something, I would have to turn down work that would put food on my table. The other alternative is to subconract to other developers, which returns to my original situation: Work with what you know best, and farm out the rest to others.

Yes, I'm willing to give up FoxPro if someone can show me another language which can do the job as well. In my opinion, VB is not the best fit for a small, rapidly developed, easily mainained database management system. In the same regard, VFP is not the best fit for a multi-tier, Web-ready, large-scale application. When (not if) I find myself changing my focus to such an application, I will work harder on my VB skills, along with anything else that is necessary for the job. I'm not at this point yet, and I suspect that neither are several hundred others who do the same sort of work I do.

Bigger is not always better, and there's little use for mastering something which you just won't need for your job. Let me finish with yet another hardware analogy. When you're building a house, and you need a hammer, which one will you choose: a 12-ounce claw hammer, or a 10 pound double-handed sledge? The answer: it depends on the size of the job you're doing.

Bill