Doug

Of course you are right that not all developers deal exclusively with large databases or heaps of users. That's hardly a surprise; in most countries, > 80% of businesses have < 5 employees. Cost and maintenance concerns for many of these millions of real or potential clients means that Oracle or SQL Server may not be an option. But they still need specialised accounting, stock and other business systems.

There is another little item that needs attention. That is the growing importance of WindowsCE and palmOS devices. We've just taken delivery of Compaq IPAQ, Palm and Handspring devices for a government-funded trial. We're going to develop for and deploy all of them to busy resident doctors to see whether they make a difference or are just a gimmick.

Despite "versions" of databases for these devices, the quoted advantage of CS backends vanish as soon as you are using a PDA. All data accessed by users is local. Even with the new WAP stuff coming out, anyone who has a cellphone will appreciate why stuff will simply have to be cached locally in the PDA and batch-transferred so you can keep working when reception dies on you. This is especially true in places that are underground or have rules about Radio frequency use. This turns development into a multi-tier approach with much less emphasis on the database.

Development for these devices is more similar to the old FPDos than you'd believe. Palm OS is mostly B&W with a small screen. PocketPC is better but screen design tools are still primitive- very much like FPDos. Databases are miserable- the best we've found so far is an xBase interface that uses standard xBase SQL and transports dbfs to and fro.

My point is that as markets shift and mutate, skill sets that appeared to be declining can suddenly propel themselves to the head of the pack.

I can't help think that rather than necessarily lurching here and there to try to learn the huge new tool suites for PC that prevail these days, people might like to leverage what they have. Are people interested in apps for handheld devices? Would that make a business difference in the industries where people have experience? If so, now is a good time to look closely at it.

Having said that (and despite protracted debates with JVP): if you are interested in WinCE, MS's tools use ADO and cut down versions of VB or VC. You can download it for free; it's "only" 384Mb. Tools from other vendors top out at about 3-5Mb and there are lots of them.

Regards

JR