Steve,

Thanks for the reply. You obviously took some time out to compose a detailed analysis.

I hope you are correct in your analysis. However, my direct, personal experience in Los Angeles is what causes my concerns.

I totally agree that VFP fits into a very nice nitche. In the corporate world, where I work, it functions extremely well in developing departmental applications. Up until about 4 years ago, I had no problem in being a corporate developer creating Foxpro/VFP apps. However, 4 years ago is when recruiters started telling me that the majority of VFP work was in helping to rewrite apps in VB. I did not get any of those jobs, so I'm not sure what caused the mass exodus to VB.

The only thing I heard was on an interview for a company that was bringing inhouse an app that consultants were originally brought in to create. Form what I heard the app had some big problems and the higher ups were, in some cases, blaming Foxpro for the app shortcomings.

My other concern is the VFP labor pool. During the height of the dotcom boom, I received a total of zero calls for VFP. The calls I got where because of my heavy data background, but in Oracle and SQL Server. I received an offer in an Oracle shop, which I accepted. So for 1 1/2 yrs I was totally out of the VFP world.

When the dot crunch hit me I had trouble looking for Oracle work, since most of the available Oracle work now is only in Financials. This time, I did get calls when I started looking for VFP work. The first interview I had, they gave me the quiz that's been floating around on the internet for years. To my amazment, even though I've been out of Fox for 1 1/2 years, I was the first interviewee to get more than 3 questions right.

The point of my comments is that my concerns, and why I have to agree in many cases with JP, is that I've seen the VFP job market almost totally dry up. Despite the size of Los Angeles, when I've talked to other VFP folks, we can list quite a few of the same companies we've been to.

As a corporate developer type of person, I need to very aware of the lists that are published that focus on the computer skills that are in demand. Foxpro was maybe on the list, but VFP will never. And to date its taken many steps back on the list.

So on one hand we have the current environment of VFP that has lost significant ground in the last several years. On the other hand, we are at a point where technology ready to make some changes. I'm sure that there will be a lot of VB folks that never make the shift, ala Foxpro to VFP.

On the good side, we have a new technology in .net that in many ways is closer to VFP than to its predecessor. I think the smart thing to do is to get up to speed on .net because I feel its got a better chance to catch on then for VFP to pick up market share. When I hear that one of the big problems with the new technology is knowing how to view the framework to find available libraries, and I have lots of experience in viewing libraries, I think it would be foolish for me not to take advantage of the situation.

PF