I was at "The Lab on SQL Server" yesterday in Philly - a MS event demonstrating advanced SQL Server 7.0 tuning tricks, demos, etc. I had to leave early and went out for an early lunch, grabbed my box-lunch and sat their eating. Soon I was joined by the session's first speaker who was also getting an early lunch since someone else was talking at the time.

I'm sorry I don't remember his name or exact title (never paid attention to it in first place I guess), but he is the "East Coast SQL Server Head" for Micorost. He definitely knew his stuff and has a pretty major job. (If you "rumour haters" need a name I'll go look it up)

He asked whatI did, and pretty soon we were talking about VFP. I asked him how VFP "fit in to all this". His comment was (near quote) - "Foxpro - geez - every time we try to kill it, there's too many VFP programmers out there and they're really loyal ..." . BTW - The "every time we try to kill it" part is an EXACT quote

Now you can take that good or bad or both. I think it illustrates what we all already know - MS does not WANT VFP - but the sheer number and dedication of the developers/users (us) FORCES them to continue to support it. That's a tough boat for us to be in. what it means - and as I have predicted before - is that they will "minimally support it" while hyping SQL Server, VB, VC++, and even Access until enough people attrition away from VFP that they CAN kill it.

I HATE this - don't get me wrong - and I'll continue to use, support, and even fight for VFP for as long as it makes sense - but SQL Server and maybe even VB are on my list to learn and master ASAP.

Ken

>>You should take a different tactic with clients. Tell them you are going to use Visual Studio...whichever tool(s) are best for the job.
>
>I think that's a very wise tactic. For me, it's also kind of a "stealth" tactic to get vfp officially approved as a standard development tool at my agency, which couldn't be done submitting vfp as a stand-alone tool...