Cindy,

Sorry, I thought Duke was a State University.

However, public sector vs. private notwithstanding, I would think that a university would be more apt to be running Win 2K rather than NT. There were many discussions here back in the day of how MS never thought that NT would need to be a 24/7 operating system.

In terms of type of apps, I would think you would be using Oracle or SQL Server if security was a concern.

Also, I would be interested in hereing how your attempt to fill a position went. I noticed your post here. I never paid much attention to the arguements about using VB because it was easier to find people. I was looking for work this summer after working for a dotcom for a while. That was Oracle work, so I hadn't even clicked on the Fox icon for over a year. Yet the first VFP interview I went on, they had 1 of the programmers quiz me and she used the dreaded 24 questions. Most of those questions are fairly basic. I don't know how you could call yourself a programmer if you can't answer most of them. Yet I was the first person to get more than 3 right, and I hadn't even used the language in so long. I didn't get the job because of money, so I'm not sure if they weren't bringing in good candidates anyways, but it was a very surprising experience.

PF

>Perry,
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>The area of Duke Medical Center I work in has no web-enabled applications. In general, web-enabled applications for patient information are looked at as a security problem. I have a small amount of highly confidential medical data I use for reports and management research (where are costs and profits are). I see no need for web services in what I do.
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>I think the question is, what type of world class apps are you trying to create? VB7 has a distinct advantage for online shopping, for example.
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>I don't know why you refer to DUMC as "the public sector" as we are not state-owned. Can you please explain? Although I make decisions for my small area, I don't make decisions for the larger entity of DUMC. However, I do have to contend with the realities of the decisions others make here, and that reality is pretty conservative. We do have "bleeding edge" areas though.
>
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>>It seems as though you are making arguments to help support your organization maintaining the status quo. That is why I don't work in the Public sector at all.
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>>When I've sat around and discussed technology in the past couple months, the change from VB6 to VB7 vs the stability between VFP6 and VFP7 has been a nonissue. The main question has been what technology would afford us the best chance of creating world class apps. The possibilities of .Net point in that direction. Maintaining the status quo is not an option as the people I deal with all relize that we have to look at other tools to be able to grow our company.