>>Glad VFP 7.0 is available for download. We all know that software is never complete or “anomaly” free. This is a product that has been anxiously waited for and now it is here!
>>
>>I congratulate the Microsoft staff for it’s fine work. At the same time I have mixed emotions about the “hot fix” issued yesterday. This is certainly a “heads up” from Microsoft and shows they are on top of issues that concern us. At the same time I am concerned that the retail version will not have the fixes. I just hate to see VFP 7.0 “go out the door” with known problems. This is a difficult position IMO for Microsoft but this is the world of software development.
>>
>>Somehow I feel if the product is released to the retail market with problems of this type it will be viewed as a less than professional product. We have enough of that concept to overcome within the IT world. This could just be more “egg on face syndrome” for developers.
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>>Tom
>
>Funny, Tom, but as a "negative ninnie" I myself had similar concerns.
>
>I was also astonished that the first note I saw on this congratulated the VFP Team on the prompt action and said 'keep them coming'. While I agree that prompt action is/was necessary, such should not have been needed in the first place!
>Now it starts to look like the same thing has happened this time as happened with VFP 6 - touted as "ready" way before the rest of VS yet, when delivered, had lots of problems.
>This time it was a major reason for taking it out of the box.
>
>I can tell you this. I have my order for VFP 7 in (Programmer's Paradise Canada) and I am anxious to get it, but I would not hesitate to wait for it even longer *IF* the VFP Team withdraws it from production so that these (and any others probably also now in the works) repairs can be done.
>
Jim;

I agree with you that waiting awhile longer is not going to hurt and could greatly help this situation. During my career as a programmer I have worked on some large projects with five or six other programmers, at more than one company. In one case we had 451 known “anomalies” (my preference to that other dreaded word) of from priority 1 (show stopper) to priority 3 (visual preference).

Management was made aware of each problem and was the ultimate authority as to “when the product would ship”. At some point in time once all known show stoppers were resolved the product was shipped with known problems. That is the world of software that I have experienced. Maintenance releases were planned. The big term in this industry is “First to Market” – but that does not apply here. Management will often choose a date to ship regardless if the product is ready or not.

Steve Ballmer stated around April of last year that Visual Studio 7.0 would not ship until it was ready. That was and is good news to me and is a statement of responsiblity I have never heard before from anyone in this business. However, as we know Visual FoxPro was "taken out of the box", and so perhaps being ready did not apply in this case.

One thing I never want to hear is a client call me and tell me there is a problem with a program I wrote. Problems should be detected and resolved through thorough testing. I have worked for companies that did not believe in testing. In fact I got hell at one company for testing code changes before shipping to the client. At another company the president told me “Let the customers find the problems and tell us”! That company is out of business. Why does the software industry have such a bad rap? Just look at the attitudes of the people involved!

I work at NUMMI, and we build cars and trucks. This is a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors. If this company turned out products with the normal quality found with software – we would be out of business. Instead we receive awards from J.D. Powers for our quality. Maybe that is what the software industry needs – something on the order of J.D. Powers to rate software offerings.

Tom