>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.
>

That would be a service to most of your readership.

>>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.
>

I did not think you were, and did not think you had any input or review oversight responsibility on the item. I felt if you had been asked regarding why it did not work as described under NT, you would have recognized the issue and addressed it

>>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?
>

George is a known individual to the staff at FPA, and I am not. George does not have any history of conflict with on-line postings, I do. It might be that FPA chose to respond to George and not to me on that basis. George, by being a known quantity to the FPA staff, might be a better point of contact, and the FPA staff might feel more of a need to respond to issues raised by him rather than by me. No sinister plots, just a matter of who FPA felt was the better choice of people raising these issue to reply to in public.

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The API may be outmoded, outdated and obscure, and we'd do the world a favor by getting UT to rip your fine work on STRUCT off the face of the earth, and my own CLSHEAP, which Mr.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

We are in basic agreement here, which is why I often choose to refer to available COM solutions that are part of or derived from the MS scripting products rather than extolling the virtues of a few API calls.

>>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?
>

Yes; if FPA's position is to say "Exploiting the Win32 Platform SDK to solve problems in VFP is a bad idea where COM could be applied", they should extend that statement to "Employing VFP for new development for the Win32 platform is better for the client than continuing to develop with FPW, a product that is no longer formerly supported by the vendor." The amount of space devoted to FP2.x concerns in FPA does not make this statement. Far more space is spent in FPA trying to continue to make things fit into FPD/FPW than is spent with useful discussion of empowering VFP with either COM or the Platform SDK.

>>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.
>

And as I've stated, I'm not looking to lock horns with FPA's editors. As an FPA subscriber, I'm disappointed in the quality and direction of the publication. Having said that, if things don't change for the better, I won't renew my FPA subscription. From both FPA's and my own standpoint, no great loss on either end - they don't need my subscription, and I derive little or value from the magazine as it stands today. Tamar, or whoever speaks officially for the magazine, need not address my issues; if they feel a need to criticize me for what I've said, I'm more than willing to listen to their critiques, or to expand on what I've said if it clarifies the issues at hand.

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

I'm not looking to give JVP an excuse to bombard FPA in general or you or Tamar in detail. I'm simply saying I'm not a happy subscriber, and stating why, in an explicit and hopefully objective fashion. If FPA wants to drop the issue, they can do so by simply not responding to my statements here.