>The only problem with FoxAdvisor is simply that the MS strategy of directing new users to VB is reducing their customer pool. Face it, it is cheaper for MS to support one language rather than two.
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I don't think you understand the stratgey - I'd suggest reading my posts and JVP's posts in this and related threads about the WHY behind VB. The cost of supporting VFP is absolutely of no consequence to why VB has a strategic value to MS. VFP is not going to go away as long as the product continues to provide a market that can sustain itself. It is not competing for the same, or even a similar, market in the MS product spectrum, any more than C++ does. Less so than C++ does. MS needs C++ to write VB and VFP and MS Office and Money2000 and all the rest of the three-ring-circus! Neither VB or VFP is suitable to these tasks.

VB as a general tool is strategic to the MS marketplace from the standpoint that it is the syntactic model being used to add accessibility and functionality to things besides VB. I don't think you'd criticize DOS for not having the same syntax of FP, because they don't coincide. MS made the decision that, where stronger roots for programmatic access to environments was needed, they'd use VB as the model. So the next logical extension to the command line is based on VB's general syntax. BFD (Big Freaking Deal). It doesn't make you unable to use FP. So if you want to give MS Word or Excel commands through a new, never before accessible interface, the instructions look a lot like VB. Again, BFD, you can issue those commands from inside VFP. Or the idea of how to control browsers and web servers looks like VB rather than perl or KShell. BFD, VFP can play that way and send those commands just as easily.

It just means that if you know VB, these new things are more intuitive to you than if you know VFP. Or COBOL. APL. GASP. Motorola 6502 assembly language. Have I said BFD in the last two sentences? Being closer to VB doesn't make doing any harder than something else would be for you, it's just easier for people who know a little VB. Could it be that a whole lot more people know a little VB than a little APL? You betcha! Is it safe to say 10-100x as many people know a little BASIC from somewhere than a little generic xBASE? So MS should penalize them because that's not what you think is the better core language? I don't think so...

>For me, the main thing FP has going for me is that it has a native, easy to use, and super fast database at no additional cost. I'll stick with it.
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So don't write apps in VB. But if you don't want to look dumb when your user wants you to build the logical replace for that DOS batch file, and the syntax looks like VB, you'd better know the ins and outs of the new replacement for the batch file commands. Or will you refuse to use batch files because they don't look like VFP?

IOW, I had to learn to the names of some fish in Japanese to order sushi at my favorite sushi bar, have I hurt myself by learning more than maki (yellowtail tuna) and ebi (shrimp)? I need to be able to order the right number of beers at a little Tex-Mex place I frequented when I lived in San Antonio, so I learned barely enough Spanish to get the right number of cervesas...uno, dos, tres...(I beg native speakers to excuse my inability to spell in their native toungues - I'm getting old and senile.)

Now, do I get pissed off at the bartender in Tokyo because he never needed to learn to count in Spanish?