>>>>
>>>>I forgot to add that the UT is probably the sole reason why VFP continues to remain actively used by so many programmers. Without UT Visual FoxPro would have died at VFP3 when Microsoft stopped advertising it.
>>>
>>>The UT is great but let's not kid ourselves about VFP's demise without it. You have no basis of fact to back up that statement. Most VFP developers don't even know about, care about or USE the UT (unless the UT has 250,000 active members!)
>>
>>"Most"? And then you pull 250,000 VFP programmers out of your hat!
>>Have you forgotten the summary of programming jobs available in the US, sorted by language, as found on dice.com? Let me refresh your memory. Yes, I know, this is not an exhaustive sample, but it is a broad one. Also, it doesn't reflect the current market turn down, but it does give approximate ratios.
>>
>>Language Jobs
>>C++ 38,540
>>Java 29,545
>>VB 13,321
>>Lotus Notes 1,838
>>Delphi 456
>>VFP 241
>>
>>These numbers don't support the idea that VFP is a widely used tool.
>>Notice that only 241 jobs were opened in VFP compared to 13,321 for VB. That's 55 to 1 for VB and 165 to 1 for C++. If there are 3 million VB programmers "out there" then there are only 54,545 VFP programmers. If you assume 15 million VB coders then about 250,00 VFP coders exist. Do you think that VB coders make up 18% of the US population, or 2% of the First World?
>>
>>A vast hord of PROFESSIONAL VFP progammers who supposedly exist ""out there" and do not know about UT IS a myth. If I were to guesstimate what percentage of VFP programmers (whose full time job is using VFP, not weekend warriors) use UT I would put it at over 90%. A little less than 30 thousand are registered with the UT.
>>
>>BTW, Craig, if you think my previous extrapolation was extreme see this interesting read:
>>The Alexandria Effect
>>http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-18-009-20-OP
>
>Jerry,
>
>Your logic is flawed. You can't base the number of VFP/FP developers by the number of job listings on a certain website and express it as a proportional relationship to the number of VB/C++ jobs. That's fuzzy math!

No, it's a supposition based on facts, which is better than an asumption based on ethereal figures.

>
>I've heard estimates that the number of VFP users (based on the number of licenses sold and tracked by MS) has fluctuated between 100,000 and 500,000 but is probably somewhat greater due to illegal copies.

Even if the illegal copies were 2:1 such figures are NOT supported by the actual job openings advertized and available for VFP programmers. There is a DIRECT relationship between the number of companies that use VFP and the number of job openings available for VFP programmers. Licenses 'sold' by MS may include those that are included in the VS set, just the way MS OS sales include those bundled with PC regardless of whether the consumer uses MS or not.

>
>Whatsmore, VFP and FP are much more widely used in countries outside the US.

Perhaps, but there is no justification available for that conclusion. So me a 'dice.com' that covers Europe, Austrialia, and the Pacific. Market trends in related economies suggest the US market is still the significant economy: 10 times Canada, 20 times Mexico, twice that of Japan, and equal to the total of the EU countries. (http://www.wri.org/wri/wr-96-97/wr96dtei.pdf), so at best the rest of the world would only equal the US number of VFP coders.
>
>Where do you get this 90% (of all VFP users are on the UT) figure from? That's completely arbitrary and unsubstantiated.

See above.

>I'd say the only supportable statement you made was the number of registered members on the UT - something which can be substantiated by UT admins. Assuming this statement was correct (about 30,000 you claimed which seems a little high) than we're still looking at a 10% usage rate AT BEST.
>
>Also, I haven't me a VFP'er yet that's known about the UT (accept for Ted Roche) before I brought their attention to it and I know quite a few (about 20 or so). Even after I did "educate" my Fox peers on the benefits of the UT many did not follow up and become BUTM or PUTM members.
>
>Based on these observations, facts and figures, I'd say may argument has a lot more credibility!

Ah, my wife is prettier than your wife!

>
>Et tu?

Bruta? :)

>
>-JT