I'm glad to hear you say that, John. As an independent developer, I get paid to create solutions that work. Most of my clients are business people who wouldn't know VFP from FORTRAN, and shouldn't have to. One of the things they pay me for is to know what tool is right for the job. And for the kinds of apps I create, VFP is most often the best choice.

If I develop solutions that work, I get happy customers and more business. And VFP gets a good reputation. That's my way of promoting this product.

For the sake of our friend from Manila who started this thread, in case there is a language barrier, I wanted to add that I presume your comment that "VFP ain't going nowhere for the next 18-24 months at least" was meant in the positive sense, as in "nothing bad is going to happen to VFP..." rather than "VFP is going to be stagnant...". We know that exciting things are happening with VFP, with a major udpate (SP3) not too long ago and a new release having already been previewed.


>Hi Ed,
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>Ditto. Clients hire me to engineer solutions. I am rarely told what language to develop in. Sometimes, the back-end database is dictated to me if it's already in place, and sometimes, RPCs are dictated to me if it's an existing n-tier environment.
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>Regardless of whether Craig is right or John is right, VFP ain't going nowhere for the next 18-24 months at least. And if it does....so be it. I'll still model solutions the same way: just might implement them differently.
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>>VB has strengths, and is appealing to several classes of custoemrs - the ones who are going to have to maintain a pool of talent and want what's widely available to increae the number of candidates to choose from, and people who don't want to hear about tools other than whatever the market leader du jour is because it's the tool and not the talent of the person using it from their POV." Clients tend to hire me less because I'm a good VFP or C programmer, but because I'm a good programmer, and can figure out what they need and build something for them. I don't go and try to second-guess professionalsm that I hire because of their expertise - I don't use my doctor because he likes BrandX antibiotics instead of BrandY that's less well advertised - I use him because I trust his judgement and professionalism; I pay my lawyer to explain what my legal issues are, to develop a plan of action and a set of working documents that improve my position. Hmmmm....sounds like why someone might
>>pick one programmer over another, assuming that they were viewed as professionals.