>I was arguing that converting dates to characters would be far more dangerous than just checking if a date was in valid range because 01/02/2000 could be easely switched with 02/01/2000. If the program forgets to SET DATE properly all the handeling done with characters is more dangerous than this whole 'Y2K' shortcomming in FPW 2.x. Some other college took this standpoint as well. I was fired only a weeks after that, the college a few months after. The arguments were that we were not team players. In fact all they were left with was a bunch of sheep who are not capable of anything and certainly not dare to speak out loud. I really wonder if this FoxPro team is still alive ?!

Walter,

I have worked in just these types of situations. I wonder if this was a large company with a small Fox team. Or a team that originated from "super-users" and then grew. Maybe just developers who were totally content with the status quo and didn't want to expand beyond their day-to-day knowledge? It would be interesting to do a group dynamics study of IT departments and see what motivations drive the interactions of a team. Is it the same as other careers or are the inate differences to how people intereact with one another. Territorialism (word?) is one that comes to mind. It is often associate to IT, but is that still true? And is that just a perception that it's exclusive to our peers?

I've also noticed that the ones that are willing to be progressive, work smart and believe in what they do enought to want to learn more are the ones that move on and leave the sheep behind. I was once a "super-user" myself another lifetime ago, but a desire to become professional at something I also found interesting sent me down the path I'm on today. Some of the others I worked with back then are still there, doing exactly what they did before, for the same money and with the same gripes.

Renoir