Bob,

Right. I think that most do indeed work on proprietary applications, not commercial ones. As far as sharing information goes I see this as a kind of public trust. Of all the developers over the years who have made commercial products without exception they have been willing to help, but not to give away their proprietary information. Techniques, approaches, etc.

Best,

DD


>I am sure that it is true that most VFP programmers (or maybe programmers in general) don't consider their programming peers to be competitors - but then, most are working on proprietary apps with specific clients. For those of us who write commercial apps for the retail shelf, the situation may be somewhat different. I am happy to answer questions about general strategy, syntax, etc., but I haven't written for FoxTalk in many years, for instance, and I rarely volunteer to give out complete code to other programmers because I *do* have direct competitors. I don't ask other programmers to do so for me either.
>
>The truth is, I rarely even withhold detailed solutions from someone that I know to be a direct competitor - but I have one, for instance, who has a habit of publicly blaming Foxpro when their software has a bug that they haven't been able to fix. Aside from the fact that I think it is pathetic for a carpenter to repeatedly blame his tools (in consumer forums and on their web site, mind you, not just among other carpenters), such rumors negatively affect my business because we're both trying to attract the same customers. Their public excuses have even inspired some third parties to write articles in mainstream magazines recommending that consumers in my category (family history software) avoid programs that are written in Foxpro.
>
>I once offered to solve a problem that they had been wrestling with for a long time, causing GPFs in their released product. My app has a similar feature but without GPFs so I offered to tell them how I did it - but on the sole condition that they retract their public claims that it was all Foxpro's fault. They declined my offer and some three years later, they're *still* blaming Foxpro.
>
>Of course (thankfully), they're the exception. But I think it is fair to say that the dynamics are somewhat different among programmers who compete for shelf space at CompUSA.
>
>-Bob