Walter,

PMFJI.

>As I mentioned several times before in this thread, VFP can take advantage of .NET. According to what i've read in a dozen of messages it seems that only a very small part of .NET can't be used with VFP directly.

To my best knowledge, you can not build .NET enabled app in a full fashion without a tool that compiles CLR. Yes, we can call VFP COM inside the .NET, and at the same time, execute .NET COM done in C# or VB in VFP app (courtesy of some folks here), but it stops there. Without a tool that compiles CLR, you can no longer participate fully in .NET technology. MS keeps on introducing new technology, I just want to be forward looking, not just today's technology (DNA, n-Tier, COM, etc.)

>To me it does not make sense to migrate VFP to .NET in the VB way. We must have backward compatibility. We can't affort to loose our strengths (Local data engine and DML, runtime evaluation of code) or else there are no reasons to choose VFP over other languages like VB.

IMO, no VFP feature will gone if support for CLR runtime is just an option. VFP language should be kept intact with the ability to compile CLR for us to participate fully in .NET tech.

>The way we could fully participate in .NET would be to have an optional compile coiche whether or not to compile to the CLR. Even, if we (as a community) choose to have optional CLR support (like all the other languages, except for VB7 and C#) would it not be wise to know what advantages this would have, rather than blindly spend the VFP teams resources (so that other, maybe more important wishes won't be implemented).

>To me it is a fact, that many IT folks are driven by hypes, and do not look at the facts and weigh them accurately. Let's first look at what compiling to the CLR has to offer, and then choose if we find it worth the cost or not. We can't afford to jump into the water because everyone else does....

It's a technology issue, not hypes IMHO. I think MS won't invest billions of $ in C# and re-architecting VB without first calculating the ROI. MS will not let VBers gone with the wind because of .NET. One folks in DevX says "The thing is I am making money because of VB. It might not be the best tool but bottomline is, I am making money..."