John

great post.

I think you are saying that if you are a 'programmer' you need to go where the "market" is which means VB or similar where the basic programming jobs are to be found.

If you have the skills to be a 'consultant' then you can choose your tools more readily because you are chosen for your ideas and contributions, not just to program to specification.

I also agree with your comments about VFP being an oasis of stability. To have to change again is going to hurt vb people, assuming they do actually change. There is even anguish from the likes of Karl Petersen (no relation I assume) who was filled with angry flame for anybody who criticised the mighty VB 8 months ago but now calls it "visual fred" and talks about "dot nyet" in the anti-.NET page on his website.

But as for your warnings in the last 2 years; actually it has been happening since 1995. We went through all this then with Winchell as agent provocateur. Filled with concern, I moved my company to Java because I thought that would future-proof and make life easier. mistake. I'm back in VFP now. Why? Because clients chose our products because of the business understanding we brought to the product and when we began missing deadlines and producing flaky stuff with Java we *lost* clients. Those who miss deadlines and produce flaky stuff with this latest "cool tool" will experience the same I'm sure.

Lesson: Stay Productive.

Regards

JR