>Thou shalt be Productive.

Too simplisitic.. Sure, productivity is important - very important. However, the tool has to be accepted as well. It is a multi-pronged argument.


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By all means people should examine other tools, and for those who cannot be productive in VFP and earn a living then of course they should move to a different tool.
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How about those that are productive with VFP, but can't find a job in VFP? What should they do?


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If one is productive in VFP and there is as much work as can physically be performed then it would be silly to shift to another tool just because a FUDmeister said the sky is about to fall.
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Shifting today and preparing for tomorrow are NOT mutually exclusive. Don't confuse preparation with shifting...< s >..

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I should know. I moved my company to Java a while back because the VFP forums flowed with ominous FUD and Java was a hot topic. Reality intervened too late; I realised that "looking cool" is only valuable if you have IPO dollars and do not need to make a profit; in the real world, VFP was far, far more productive than we could be with Java. So we slunk back.
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Why am I not surprised by this...< bg >...



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I'd advise people to carefully analyse the somewhat frightening posts from FUDmeisters. Strip away the soundbites, cliche's and examples that have no direct bearing. With the little that is left, compare it to one's own situation to see if it applies.
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I think if you advise people to not do what you did, you are definitely on target. If you are advising people not to listen to others, I think you should let people decide for themselves.


>When I do this I find there are a few truths that do apply. MS certainly fails to promote VFP as well as it might. This appears deliberate. New developers generally do not consider VFP to be an option, which is a concern. And some organisations, like Gartner Group, have been saying since 1995 that MS will soon stop upgrading VFP. Sure enough it is FUD but some senior managers imagine that Gartner knows what it is talking about and it has a detrimental effect.
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>But as long as we always come back to my Occam's Razor rule, IMHO we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
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>For the future: let us not imaging that "in five years" we will all be developing apps for PCs using a tool that somebody else says is best. There are whole areas of industry where the PC is a completely daft way of managing business, totally unsuitable for the business reality. New technologies we can hardly imagine will be the norm and some of us here will be leaders in driving the new generation of hand-held, speech and other devices. Rushing to learn NET or some other coolness in the year 2000 may be completely unnecessary to do well in these new areas and in fact may distract us from them if we are already productive.
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>The future is bright for those who can adapt and think. Let us not imagine that remaining with VFP for another year, two or five automatically dooms us. As long as we keep our eyes open and watch for opportunities and areas where we can add real value, none of us will end up as street-people, even if we can't predict what we will be doing in five years. Despite their apparent certainty, neither can the FUDmeisters.
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As for these last paragraphs, I don't have a clue as to what your intended point is or what you are trying to say...< s >...


< JVP >