>Hi Steve,
>
>Thanks for mentioning your experience with the Force compiler.
>
>Its strict typing and requirement that all variables be declared forced me to clean up my sloppy xBase coding and developed good coding discipline I still observe. For me Force was a valuable learning experience. Too bad they couldn't make a long term go of it, IMHO.
>
>Spence

Spence,

I like the strict data typing myself. It catches a lot of problems. However, I don't think you can have strict data typing and macros, and macros are nice to have. Especially for building SELECT statements. Of course, VFP could create a function for executing certain commands (such as SELECT and SET) and make macros less important. VFP allows us to all sorts of things that strict typing won't allow, so it's a tradeoff.

Three or four years ago I asked them (the guys in Spring) if they were going to make a Windows version, but they didn't see one on their horizon. I was hoping they would make a better go of it, too.