>Hi Gar,
>
>>I have heard a number of claims the Delphi is also far superior to VFP in terms of bug handling. True or False?
>
>Depends. Delphi has advanced technologies like structured exception handling. It's also strict typed and I suppose it provides inline editing possibilities within the debugger, but that's only a guess.
>
>VFP 6 is really good in preventing bugs and writing bug-free code. It has a lot of possibilities, a lot of features to compensate some of the problems, for example, caused by the weak typing. The real problem that VFP has is that VFP developer don't use this features!
>
>Most VFP developers I know don't use ASSERT or DEBUGOUT, many don't have naming conventions, don't check data types, most developers don't even run their code in the debugger, or test in a second instance of VFP. There's no knowledgebase about common mistakes of VFP developers. Almost every other development tool has utilities that parse the sources for common errors automatically, VFP hasn't. The usage of automated testing tools is almost zero in the VFP community and words like "unit testing" , "progression test" or "boundary checks" are mostly only known theoretically, but not used in the real-world applications. Only "code coverage" gets increased attention because of the Coverage Profiler on VFP, but many people use it only for profiling (finding slow parts of the program).
>
>Thus, it's not the product, it's more the developers attitude, of course, only in my opinion. :)
>
>Whew, I guess I get some replies to this message that only John Petersen uses to get. *g*

Nope. I think you are correct in these observations/assumptions. But I think incorporating these features in a developer's attitude comes with experience. I recently started using Asserts but have used Debugout for quite a while now. While I do run stuff from the debugger and used the coverage profiler mainly for finding the slow parts, I have used the profiler to see what parts still need testing.

I think most of us have been so overwhelmed by the quantum leap from procedural coding to OOP development [i.e., FP2.x to VFP] that we are having a very hard time catching up with the technology. Especially while we are frantically pumping out new apps and converting legacy apps. IMO, there has been more advance in development tools, hardware, etc., in the last 3 to 4 years than the previous 10 years prior to that combined.

VFP has been mostly a learn as you develop process which definitely has its downside. Thank goodness for 3rd party tools like SDT and various frameworks or most of us would have drowned by now.