John,

If you want a JOB within the next 6 to 12 months, VFP6 and VFP7 will be almost the same. Many folks will upgrade their applications immediately to take advantage of the new features, but all VFP6 will run under VFP7 after being recompiled.

There is a huge difference between VB6 and VB7. Many people will only be beginning VB7. There are no apps in production on VB7 now, and probably not any time as soon as 12 months, given that it won't be released for at least 3 more months.

Study VFP6 and you've studied VFP7, especially if you're a beginner.

Study VB6 and you'll have a lot to change in VB7; no one will hire a VB7-only person for a long time.

I can't say much about the next version of MS SQL. Probably about the same amount of change as VFP6 to VFP7. Maybe someone else can say for sure.



>If someone wants to change profession and get a job as a programmer within next 6-12 months, what should he study? Should he study VFP/VB/MSSQL now and work his way up to .NET or should he go straight to .NET (although still in early beta but functional and stable) and MSSQL?