Mike,

>So you say today. Only gurus knew the implications of creating COM servers when 6.0 came out (or was it 5.0? Garrett and I argued about this just tonight). And yet, how many VFP devs today take VFP COM servers for granted now? Often times, we may look to add features that may look esoteric today, but you'll expect to be in any product tomorrow. Take Web Services, for example. Oh, sure, it's no big deal now. What would the hew and cry be if we were to take that feature set out of VFP.Next + 2, after everyone has adopted Web Services and rolled the.m into their apps?

That is a good point...

>>My main point is that it's been a long time since we saw a breakthrough improvement in the Fox.
>
>I would disagree. Okay, 6.0 was kind of ho-hum as an upgrade, breakthrough-

I thought 6.0 SP3 was a HUGE breakthrough because it allowed compilation on the fly. I was able to create several new tools and enhance existing ones now that I could essentially build events on the fly and run them. I think this discussion is dealing with enhancements that _really_ allow new, cool stuff to be done. Elsewhere someone mentions that while Intellisense is nice, it does not provide a quantum leap as far as things you can ultimately accomplish with the product.

>wise. But 7.0? C'mon, Web Services integration, which no other shipping Microsoft product has, isn't enough? Oh, Delphi does WS? Umm, I've seen their implementation, and it's still not as cool as ours. Way too much code to write, given that I can add a WS to IntelliSense.

The Web Services stuff does seem pretty cool, though I know nothing about it so do not know what it can ultimately achieve for me just yet...

>Data-driven IntelliSense? The Cobb Editor Extensions were cool, and I used them a lot. Cobb pulled off a good one with that. Other MSFT langs have similar functionality, too. But scripting? Umm, no. I'll gather my various scripts and make them suitable for public consumption, and you tell me if that isn't reason to upgrade or not.

I agree that this increases productivity (anyone coding in Fox for several years already probably has a scheme for aiding the opening of projects, path-setting, executable building/deployment, and on and on). But it doesn't really increase what the tool can do. To be honest, I can't think of anything that would really be a great leap as far as tool capabilities...I usually just wait until the Fox team dazzles me... *smile*

>And then there's the IMPLEMENTS clause. Yeesh, are you aware of how much you can do with this? Though I'll agree this probably falls into your "guru" category, it won't for long once folks find out what they can do with it.

This only applies to COM/ActiveX objects, yes? Or can IMPLEMENTS be used with native Fox objects (in other words giving Fox classes pseudo-multiple-inheritance)?

>We're not playing "catch up"! Name me one shipping product that has the Web Services support that VFP has, Microsoft or not. Well, okay, there's that XML thing. Oh, wait, I guess we do that, too. What is VFP missing again?

I was wondering the same thing...while I agree that upgrading for the sake of upgrading is not a smart thing, I haven't really heard anyone say something they think VFP needs to be hugely more functional...

I snipped the rest, as I pretty much agree with what you are saying, and I think Ken has done a remarkable job in a short time...just waiting to see what he comes up with next!

JoeK