>Ed,
>
>>>>What I'm trying to say is not that knowing VFP is not a bad thing, but that investing time and effort in other tools like VB, C++, Java and the like is a smart move, and a good thing, as much as it might be distatsteful to some people to know more than one thing. Especially if you're relying on new job opportunities to pay the rent.
>>>
>
>>>The problem is that these facts are known so good that repetition of them does not make much help. What's the point in telling that white wall is really white?
>>>It borders to straw man argument: you build some obsoletely confined VFP developer image ahd then fight it.
>>>
>>
>>Walter seems to 'ignore' these issues. But, then, since he's not interested in hearing it, I am probably wasting space repeating the arguments...thanks.
>
>No this is not the reason. The real reason is that i've got some difficulties to figure out WHAT you're saying. Though i respect your lengthy replies, I , as a dutchman have got trouble to get the message. It's pure a matter of translation. I'm not saying that you must simplify your messages to me, but it sure woudl be of any help.
>
>
>Regards, walter,

Walter,

PMFJI....

I think you may be having a case of misunderstanding as a result of fundamental presumtion differences.

Here in the States the xBase language has, almost from day one, had to fight for its existence. It wasn't developed by some prestifious university, nor did it eminate from some particularly notable research laboratory like Xerox's PARC.

It started life as a tool to help with football (not soccer *g*) scores for goodness sakes.

The various vendors have consistently mishandled the product and at one point almost killed it off by their stupidity. Well, Dave Fulton and then Microsoft have kept the language (and our revenue streams as well! *g) very much alive.

However, with all that the xBase community here in the States at least has been and I suspect will always be more suspicious of the notives of the vendor (there's really only one 'official' xBase language now - sad to say) no matter what they do otherwise. It's built into us.

Now, perhaps where you live this hasn't been the case and our suspicions appear as being more negative than you might think is warranted. I can certainly understand, if this were the case, why all this "FoxPro is Dead" stuff would totally mystify you. It's just that the FoxPro Community is extremely sensitive about this as a result of the history of the language.

John Petersen knows as much and more than most but he's also (I will make a presumption here JVP) probably tired of the fight and may come across to you as being more psssimistic than is warranted.

I think this is why you will see folks like Ed Rauh make assertions that they will learn other langiages. Not only is Ed correct that we need to use the best tool for the job but there's this "behind the scenes" kind of nagging thought process where we constantly are thinking in the back of our minds that this week Microsoft just might pull the plug on the product - All without any contrary evidence!

Let me ask you this: How many langiages do you program mwith? I currently use VFP for about 85-90% of my work and SQL scripting is going to take a larger future percentage as well as VB6.0 for the simple reason that VB makes easier to implement COM objects from everything I can discern, even though I plan to use VFP for all of mine until forced to do otherwise.

Does that help a little?

Best regards,

DD