>Jerry,
>
>You're taking this from a UT-only view of the VFP world which does not constitute the whole picture. With the registered users from UT and VFUG your number is surpassed easily. Add to that other forums (MS newsgroups for all languages, foxforum.com, compuserve fox) and substract any duplication (should be minimal IMO) and the 54,545 number starts to look more like a factless extrapolation rather than an estimate.

"should be minimal IMO" -- That's the hope, isn't it?

That, and the assumption that a large number of VFP programmers exist outside the US, and many more are using 'illegal' copies -- a rather harsh opinion of the ethics of non-US VFP coders.

Repeating my basic arguments:

- I refer to PROFESSIONAL VFP coders from what ever countries, self employed (5%) or employed by gov or corp (95%). The self-employed usually generate VFP runtime executables that don't require the purchase of VFP. One license can product multiple apps for sale. Gov and corp purchase one VFP license per employee coder. Each gov or corp coder can produce countless apps for internal use on their one license I've produced around 25 exe's for internal use in the last five years.

- I maintain that the US VFP programming job market is at lest equal to if not greater than the rest of the world combined.

- Microsoft has stopped advertizing VFP and has removed it from the VS package. Adding a few features or tweeking existing features (bug fixes?) and giviing the result a new version number doesn't do much for increasing the VFP coder base if the existing user base is the only market.

Before I experience the "Wrath of Kon" let me remind folks that I think VFP is the best front end around, especially to Oracle, and for lite to medium duty database needs it works great as the backend. Also, when I retire in 10 to 15 years I will, no doubt, still be maintaining some VFP apps, even though all of our new apps are now being built using Oracle.

Personally, I'll wager that when the hybrid VB-C#-SQL tool ("Visually Sharp SQL"?) finally rolls out you will see all work on VFP cease. If it weren't joined at the hip with .NET we might even look at it... which is probably why Delphi6+CLX+Kylix+Oracle on either WinXX or Linux looks so good right now, if Borland doesn't blow their chance in the Linux market with shoddy product.