Malcolm,

Hi..

Well, Tom mentioned a lot of what I'd want to say. Permit me to point out that there are several areas in one's life that need to be in balance. A quick "thumbnail" sketch would be the following - ranked in order of importance to me:

1. Spiritual
2. Will (Emotions & Intellect)
3. Physical

I place a great deal of emphasis on trying to keep these in balance in my own life. It's not really easy but it is a goal you can achieve.

If we get too focused on one area like programming (intellect) you might forget to put some focus on the Physical side or some other area of your life like spending some quality emotional time with your wife and/or kids watching a funny movie. Most people don't have a clue spititually or example but it's an area I think is also important.

I guess what I'm saying is BALANCE.

Too much FoxPro and you'll end up needing to something else.

Now, after you get your personal life in balance you should focus on your professional life. It has been my observation that most (but not all naturally) programmers tend to get really bored with their current challeng somewhere around the 18-24 month period. That's why we tend to jump around.

Also, I'd suggest that you start to organize your development process. Investigate methods and ways that you can turn into a challenge. Find ways to turn routine (read boring) tasks into more "fun" tasks. Use this process to learn some of the newer technologies. How, for example, can you turn error handling into a COM object for example.

We all will reach a point where FoxPro does not meet our real needs. That's why we should have a balance in our ersonal life. However, we will also reach a point where FoxPro becomes stale & boring simply because we've lost the challenge. That's why we should also try and find new ways to make the development process more interesting.

Not sure that will help but perhaps it will give you something to chew on.

Best,

DD


>Dough:
>
>Thanks for your reply. I understand about the golf, snorkle ... I should even try to find Rick riding the waves in Maui. However, what interests me more is your comment about approaching my development process differently.
>
>If not too much trouble, can you comment a little more on this?
>
>Thanks
>
>>
>>Go play a round of golf, snorkle, paint a car, work in your garden. IOW, make sure you keep your life balanced and that's where I'd start.
>>
>>I'd also see if I could approach my development process differently.
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>DD
>>
>>
>>>Hi All:
>>>
>>>What do y'all do when you have a large project, you program day-in and day-out, you look ahead and see more-more-more day-ins and day-outs, you look futher ahead and see a few more large projects waiting for you ... then finally, you don't even want to turn the computer on?
>>>
>>>I love to program, I love to figure things out, I love learning new things, and I love programming in VFP. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT THE DAY WOULD COME WHEN I'D GET SICK OF DOUBLE CLICKING THAT SMILEY FACED FOX ICON. It has!!
>>>
>>>Am I burnt out? No not me! NEVER! ... is what I used to feel. Is this a common thing amount programmers? What do you do when you don't feel like facing the FOX anymore?
>>>
>>>I can't just stop, so I force my self to open VFP ... the progress is now so slow it makes me even sicker: more of myself for feeling this way.
>>>
>>>Please advise, ANYTHING.
>>>
>>>TIA
>>>
>>>Mal