Perry,

Since you're prognosticating, mind if I jump in?

>snip<

>Also, I think with the Internet, we are at a paradym shift in computers. You can see the results of these type of shifts when you look at the old guy in the corner, who is there because he's the only one who knows the mainframe system.
>
>I think we'll see an IS shop with lots of folks running around passing SQL Server or some such data back and forth in various formats with tools such as VB, and they'll be 1 or 2 people in the corner maintaining the Monolithic Foxpro app.

>snip<

I'd tend to agree with this but suggest two things to think about:

1) FoxPro will continue to provide us with some way cool middle tier stuff for some time to come, plus some good desktop stuff and SQL will continue to expand the back end domination for MS shops.

-and-

2) Rather than thinking about how we, sitting at our desktop systems "go out" to a web site or web sites... Start thinking about how remote data comes to your desktop. I contend that thinking in this fashion turns the whole (gack I hate this next word but it fits) "paradigm" on it's head and will open the flood gates to a whole new generation of applications.

Let's face it, the Internet is just a big network.

Best,

DD