Hi Les,

> I don't think that Microsoft favors VB because VB users have to use SQL. They don't. They can use MDBs. But the performance is so poor with large volumes of data that migration to SQL is essential. In the case of VFP, migration to SQL is not required when data tables grow. In fact, DBF access if generally faster with VFP than with SQL, especially if some sort of VFP server is used, like the one I described in the article "A FoxPro Server" on my website, www.lespinter.com.

Agreed, with monolithic apps. With enterprise data or otherwise centralized data that other apps need to query or IUD, DBFs don't do the job. Especially without an OLE DB provider.

> I don't dislike SQL. In fact, in my work for clients, I use VFP and SQL exclusively. I haven't built a project using a DBF in a year. VFP with SQL is an excellent combination. But users aren't FORCED to use SQL. That, in my opinion, is the reason that Microsoft doesn't support FoxPro, and why all of us whose lives depend on the viability of FoxPro are in a panic.

I vehemently disagree with a cavaet on monolithic apps. With monolithic applications, the "keep it all in FoxPro" mantra rings true. MSDE (SQL Server Lite) is the perfect DB for small scale apps and leaves an upgrade path ... there's no reason for panic (unless you're married to grids).

> So why am I making such a big deal about this? It's because Microsoft has not mentioned FoxPro in its advertising, except for a few scraps, for five years, and our careers have suffered enormously as a result. I have never, ever read an article in which anyone demonstrated that VB was better than, or even equal to, VFP, for building database applications. The very suggestion is laughable.

I don't think a blanket statement like this can be made. In my last real job I could routinely blow away VB/SQL combos. But that was only in certain situations.

> Yet if you read advertisements about Visual Studio, the .NET technology, and anything else that determines our future, FoxPro is specifically excluded from most of the literature. I've seen two-page ads for Visual Studio that didn't even CONTAIN the word FoxPro. I've considered using a blowup of one of them as the backdrop for my DevCon booth with a "Where's the Fox?" caption splashed across it.

Yeah, that is a pisser.

> I've tried to get an answer to this question, to considerable personal detriment. At the Orlando DevCon, during my presentation, I offered to complete publicly against any VB programmer in the world, based on a specification that didn't unfairly favor either language, in building a typical LAN database application. No takers. Since I made that offer, I've never heard from Microsoft again, and haven't even received a Beta copy of FoxPro. So much for asking for the truth to be told.

You may be reading too much into that.... -or- .... you're putting the Fox people at MS in a confrontational role that they would rather not be in.

Frankly, for me, I don't care. If my career rested on the future viability of Fox and nothing else, I'd deserve whatever would befall me. I love VFP but I also know other ways of getting the job done.