>Have you ever noticed how one person will know a lot about one aspect of VFP and another a lot about some other aspect? This is, of course, a natural by-product of the way we learn, the work we do, the projects we have done, etc. etc. etc. Also, since there is "more than one way to skin a cat", we often find that method "A" works fine for us, so we never even bother to learn about methods b, c, d, etc.

Furthermore, you may find that so many people write long threads discussing the pros & cons of b vs c vs d, and you've gone way beyond with your A method, and just wonder why don't they use that...

>I always find it intersting to see how other developers work.

I know some customers who like it too. OTOH, I was once observed by a fellow programmer, who didn't have that much work to do as I did - she was mainly helping around the office with the third-party software, and never did much development - and when I've finished, she just said she couldn't nearly follow what I was doing. Not just Fox (where I used a dozen commands she never heard of), but the speed of using the editor, jumping between tables, browsing the test results etc. The first time I confessed to myself I maybe became a pro.

>On the flip side, I have worked a ton with Local Views, and while by now - most people have, I would be very hard pressed to believe that somebody "really knew VFP" if they couldn't build views, from code, just as fast and thoroughly as I do! If I saw somebody open the view designer, I'd almost automatically write them off as Jr Programmer material at best. So - does that make me a "methodollagy" snob too? I think it probably does.

I'd join the "start it in VD, cure it with GenDbc, and finish it in the generated .prg" club. But I know what you mean - I also get (probably biased) opinions about people who need to calculate At("\", cString) and write ten lines just to do what JustExt, JustFName or JustPath can do, or At(",", cString) to do Words() or WordNum(). Also sprach a member of FFDBC.

>4) and most importantly - they fail to measure what I consider to be the greatest skills of all - the abilities to GET ANSWERS QUICKLY WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THEM and TO LEARN RAPIDLY ON THE FLY

This really depends on the authors of the test, and the measure of test's quality actually depends on how it relates to your points. I know I sometimes cheated by getting to know the personal preferrences of the author by simply reading the questions, getting the feel of what he likes to do, and getting hints from that. Hell, I even faked a personality test - just got myself into some weird attitude and answered from that :).