Hi George,

>Well, as I see it, cross-platform is pretty much of a dead issue so why keep that stuff around.

No question about that!

>The question here really is, is it worth it from MS's perspective? I don't know the answer. Given the problems it creates, my gut reaction is to say yes. However, there may be other things that I'm not aware of.

Exactly, that's the question that no-one here can answer. But I would say it's not worth it. Who suffers from the problem the cross-platform stuff causes? Microsoft? Nope, we suffer. So, what advantages would Microsoft have when they change that? Do they sell more VFP products? Probably not, because a) it's bundled with Visual Studio and b) many other developers already have a tool that handles UI better than VFP. And when they position it as a middletier development tool? People will still use VB for front-ends, but many developers might be interested in checking out VFP for really powerfull middle-tier components where other languages either don't offer enough due to the lack of inheritance or a flexible object model (VB), or because they are too complex (VC++).

Certainly, they will continue to enhance the core product, but the put more effort into the middle tier stuff. Look at VFP 6.0, how much of it is targetted at internet, COM, DCOM and so on. And SP 3, almost everything new (except for bug fixes) is for middletier components and COM servers.


Christof