greetings John,

in spite of your strong point and fine eloquence, there is no way you will be able to convince these folks. God knows - they bought bill clinton twice! being an import myself, i know the value of standing up for, and fighting for something you truely believe in, but here it is different, this is mostly a 'throw away' society where it is just so much easier to junk something instead of doing something with it. it is just this type of attitude that kept America out of ww2 for so long and is also the attitude that will greet the chinese at the front door when they decide they want to own this country one day. i only pray there are a couple more Mike Ashermans and his type around when that happens! Keep the torch burning, Mike!

a point that i have made on another thread similar to this was that if it wasn't for the xBase language, a whole lot of us would be baging groceries instead of producing fine applications. there are a lot of folks (and i am sure that the number is more than we are willing to concede) who can't 'click' with other languages like they can with xBase. the possible abandonment of VFP by ms will hurt these folks and their families the most. it is they that i am most concerned about.

if history tells the truth, ms will not take on the 'marketing' of VFP. a wee glimmer of hope, though, is the hiring of new personel in the VFP department, but i don't think hiring a couple of VFP'ers is a real reason to start the band playing just yet....

Craig & Doug, does ms pay you per scalp you ridicule of those who dare voice out against ms??

john

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Doug

Your ad hominam labelling of "emotional" and "sky falling" and "fretting" and all the rest of it, is beneath you. It also comes across as ever so slightly smug.

I, too, am fairly secure whatever happens to VFP. More so that you might think. But I happen to have a great deal of valuable code tied up in VFP. As long as that code generates $ and the product is technically suitable I don't want to have to change- I already tried that once.

Nor do I want to be an island though, Doug. there are lots of contractors and employees out there hurting. Can you not hear that? If they go away, where will I find staff? Do I want to be a lonely bastion of nihilistic conservatism? I think not.

My belief at present is that marketing to business decisionmakers is sorely needed. Based on past performance I don't believe MS has any intention of doing that. So I'm making sure that a few ads in FPA or consumer IT rags is not cast as a serious marketing campaign. Whether I'm right or wrong does not matter a jot as long as people watch what happens.

If that causes you to say I'm fretting, so be it.

Regards

JR