Hi Ed,

I mentioned API in the context of George's message that he'd like to see more articles in Advisor that explain the inner workings of the OS, not related to the tip issue.

>What is not excusable is that noone in editorial decided to check to see if the 'tip' worked as advertised under 9x, NT and 2K.

I'm not involved at all in the tips and tricks section and can't comment on it. Though I'm sure, that the people resonsible for letting this tip slip through know how they should handle this in the future.

>Addressing this to George rather than me may be the decision made by FPA staff with regard to seeing the issue resolved.

I'm not sure I can follow here. Would you mind to explain?

>The API may be outmoded, outdated and obscure, and we'd do the world a favor by getting UT to rip your fine work on STRUCT off the face of the earth, and my own CLSHEAP, which Mr. Frost has pointed out is inadequately documented and poorly coded.

Let me put this straight.

I _personally_ think that using an API function is far better than using a COM server in many cases. Unfortunately, I've no influence on the overall strategy of Microsoft and they choose COM to be the future. COM is a technology, VFP developers can use in the future, and they can use with other products like VB, as well. We only have limited space in the issue, my space in Advisor Answers is not even a page. Therefore, we have to carefully choose different topics from a broad range of technologies we need to cover. In the overall picture, COM is more important to a VFP developer than API programming is and therefore gets or deserves more coverage.

>If that's the editorial position of FPA, please have the courage of your convictions to stress the need to retire FPD/FPW code that is no longer a supported product from MS, and that it really ought to be recoded. I see this as a greater threat to the codebase and the stagnation of the community that FPA choosing to print the occasional tip that relies on an API service.

Somehow I really have difficulties today to understand whay you are saying. It sounds to me as I've missed some context in the past... Care to explain?

>backed by the stated editorial positions of FPA

Everything I say here is my POV, not an official editorial position. Only the Managing Editor can make any official statements here, and she hasn't done so far.

OK, I think I should stop here. That's enough ammunition for JVP to start the next round. :(


Christof