>I have a vf2.5B prgm that needs to either be converted to vfp or a new prgm done.
>? is there much difference between 5.0 and 6.0 and what is 7.0!
6 has lots of enhancements over 5, especially in terms of OLE automation, ActiveX support, a stronger set of native classes, new functionality in terms of network and Win32 resources, and a nice collection of instantly usable classes called the FFC. The basic concepts underlying VFP 5 and 6 are very similar. There are also a number of really excellent VFP 6 books like Whil Hentzen's
Fundamentals and Jim Botth/Steve Sawyer's
Effective Techniques for Application Development with Visual FoxPro 6.0. If certification is an issue, the new VFP certification exams are based on VFP 6.
VFP 7 will not be released until Visual Studio 7 (or whatever it's called when it's marketed) is released - at least half a year away. And it'll be building on things that were introduced with VFP6, so my guess (only a guess based on no substantive knowledge - I am at least as clueless as the rest of the people who say anything at all about VFP7) is that you'll have less learning curve from the VFP6 perspective.
>I have 5.0 full vers. and wondered if buying 6.0 now is a good idea.
I'd look more at whether getting Visual Studio as an entire package were worth the investment. If you don't have an investment of time and effort in VFP 5 code/classes, there's little to recommend staying with the older version of the product from my POV.
>Also is it worth the effirt to try a conversion?
From my POV, it's going to give you a bad, unportable app at best, and will not get you to rethink the underlying design of the application to take advantage of the OO aspects of VFP. I fully expect to be burned at the stake (at least figuratively) for saying this, but it's just an opinion...
Have you ever written anything in VFP as opposed to FPDOS/FPW? If so, how close is the underlying design of what's there to what you've done before? Do you need to carry over the data from the existing application, and if so, what are the compelling reasons to move to VFP 5 or whatever at this point in time? I'd think that the answers to these questions in your own mind might give you an idea about what should be done...
