Several places, usually related to problems with the report writer, I have seen the pronouncement that "Microsoft is positioning Visual FoxPro for the middle tier of N-Tier applications, and as such, there will never be any further enhancements to the report writer, or the menuing system."

Now, I'm asking myself, hmmm....well, if there are no enhancements to the menuing system, that means there are to be no enhancements to the user interface (the front end). And if there are no enhancements to the report writer, then there goes the back end reporting...and we all have to go out and buy Crystal Reports for $700.00 or so, and suffer through learning that.

What does that exactly leave the VFP developer? .DBF files? no they are supposed to eventually go perhaps to SQL-Server, or the MDBE. Usual Interfaces? No....that's Visual Basic (which for OOP is pathetic)or Gawd-Help-Us, Visual InterDev...

So, ummhh....I don't want to be alarmist or anything, and I have deplored the FoxPro is Dead school for years (having heard it for years)...but I *am* beginning to wonder just what is in store for Version 7.0. The early list of of the demo, was pretty underwhelming. (OutLook-Style ToolBars... Now there is a top priority!)

Rather than sit on our heels, however, I think it is incumbant on all of us, as developers to TELL THEM rather than just wait for Them to Tell Us....what the vision for FoxPro should be. And, among other things, we should tell them that we want OOP-type menus, and we want the report writer to be modernized, and we want multiple inheritance, and a better (and more transparent) Application Generator.

And dammit...can't we banish forever "My Favorites", and all that other pseudo-web-browser-hokum which has absolutely no relevance in a corporate environment where we are delivering state-of-the-art line of business applications.

Any readings from the DevCon attendees about all this?

IMHO.

--- Larry