Mark,

>No, you missed my point. Making a decision to not use the best tool for the job just because your management has been inofrmed that some version released 18 months in the future might be the last release is ludicrous.

I didn't miss your point, and I understand where you are coming from. Trying to judge what the future holds is erroneous at best. But the worst my managers could be accused of would be swallowing incorrect information without getting alternate confirmation.

>The IDE of VB has radically changed with .NET, but I would certainly not foresake using VB6 to create a critical control just because MS sometime in the future will no longer be supporting VB6. What if I can not use VB.NET to create a control with the same functionality as I can in VB6? With your management, I would be screwed, and ultimately so would their project.

I agree, and nothing in the current state is being forsaken. We are still continuing with VFP development at the moment, and will be for some time. This tools assessment is just to get an idea of where we should be heading in the future. If .NET or Java can meet all of our needs, and VFP is on the way out, why not go with .NET or Java? Again, it comes down to accuracy of analysis and keeping the criteria fair, which is why I posted this thread.

>The point is that future support is irrelevant with respect to creating a product that does its job. You use the best tool for the job regardless if the development tool's future. If VFP 7 was absolutely the last release, I would still use it for the stuff I am doing now and quite possibly 2 years from now unless MS or some other mfg provided a better tool.

That is fine, and that is your decision. I am not going to bash my management just because they wish to try to get a better feel for the future state of some of the tools out there. While it is silly to totally disregard a tool because it may possibly be discintinued, it is also foolhardy to choose a toolset without any regard for future direction.

>Your management is sacrificing the use of a best tool for a particular job and going with a work around based on the information from a field op. How smart is that?

Let me make clear that NOTHING HAS BEEN SACRIFIED yet. This was a FIRST DRAFT meeting about choosing toolsets. I am very calm in my quest for the correct information, as no decisions have been made yet and our management is VERY open about getting the right info and basing the decision on the right criteria. Heck, they didn't have to have this open first-draft meeting at all, but they did, and that says a lot to me.

Thanks for your input!

JoeK