My take on whether VFP should compile to the Common Language Runtime or not is that it should do it.

There are 2 main reasons for that.

The first one is marketing - sorry, but it's all about marketing :) If the CLR becomes the next best thing then we ought to be there from the very beginning. The last thing we need is to have people saying "VFP does not even compiles to the CLR...yet"

The second reason, and perhaps most important reason to me, is that the CLR will become, for the lack of a better expression, the "COM of the source code." I have the impression that the CLR will become the glue that will allow us to reuse and publish components to a greater extend than what COM allow us today.

If two languages compile to the CLR, then programmers can transparently inherit code from one language or the other. Think about the power that this will bring to the VFP developer as far as building middle-tier components. VB guys will be able to reuse our classes and they won't even notice that VFP is underneath them. It will work the other way around as well, we would be able to reuse much of the cool UI that are designed forVB applications.

I know it is to early to take a "final decision" on this issue and that it won't be an easy thing neither for the VFP team nor for the VFP developers. Nevertheless, this is my $0.02 worth on the issue.