Hey John, congratulations on going independent! I just saw that in a
previous thread.

What I have been observing are some people I know that have been using
Fox products for several years. Even though that work with VFP everyday
that are using it as a FPW product. Not long ago one of them showed
me a completed application using a browse to show the data. I suggested
that he might want to use a grid instead.

The guy looked at me dumbfounded and said can you say that again. I said
why not use a grid. A grid, hmmm, I've heard of that just never used it.
Same guy just last week had never used the MessageBox() function.

My point is that these guys are doing a disservice to the entire Fox
communitee. Anyone that knew just a little bit about a quality product
would probably ask what language the app was developed in. When they
see how bad it is and associate it with VFP that is not a good thing.

I do certainly agree with you that a lot of people that formerly used
Fox products were blown away by OOP. A lot of those persons are gone for
good - too hard for them to understand. Others are out there using
VFP as a FoxPro for DOS or FoxBASE+ app. Seriously, these guys are still
using @Say, @Gets on the screen - never used a form. Pretty scary stuff.
I can assure you that those people would have an extremely tough time
passing any type of certification test...

>Hi Tom ---
>
>>I have a BS in Finance and an MBA in Quantitative Analysis. The problem
>>I find with some VFP programmers is that they know the bare minimum and sell
>>themselves as programmers.
>
>It's funny, back in the pre-VFP world I would agree with you but it seems that professionalism and expertise with VFP go hand in hand. I remember being involved in an email thread with several Fox people of merit during the VFP3 beta and the general conception was that VFP was gonna separate the "men from the boys" insofar as amateur coders were concerned. I guess that came true but not in the expected fashion; the fact is the Fox world lost 70,80% of it's developers and the rest have to struggle against VB and other ills.
>
>>VFP is an easy language to use. That is both a positive and negative.
>>Too many fools out there that are selling their services as professional
>>when they are anything but professional. That is probably why certification
>>whether good or bad does indeed have a place...
>
>VFP coded = easy. VFP architecture = HARD. Honestly, I haven't seen too many completely sh*tty VFP apps out there; not like the FP days. And, believe you me, the next cert tests are not gonna be for the timid.