John,

You will be missed. You may be making the best decision for your own career, but that doesn't mean I entirely agree with your conclusions for the rest of us. The arguments have been made. I don't want to get sucked into that debate again, and it's clear that you're fed up with it too. If it's any consolation, I agree with most of your observations.

It's very disheartening that you should be resigned to such a grim conclusion about the future of VFP. I can understand how this has been painful to you, and you might be right. It's painful to me too.

If you are right, and we are powerless to change what seems to you like an inevitable outcome, it will be even more painful to a lot of others. This brings us to some points of disagreement. From your perspective, .NET is not much of a gamble. The choice is not nearly so easy for most of the rest of us. Talk about recognizing realities, John! I think you may have missed a few of them.

Do you remember the .COM bubble? Things were looking so great for everything Internet, but nobody seemed to notice that the FoxPro job market was already in dire distress when everything was otherwise rosy a year or two ago. I mean it was seriously depressed, and I know this from personal experience, as well as numerous clear confirmations reported by others. Then we got hit with the .COM implosion and the WTC implosion. Now consider the possibility that it will be a while before we recover from this. So we might just have some hard times ahead, and maybe, just maybe, Microsoft's predictions about taking the world by storm with .NET might be a little slower to come to fruition than they would like us (and themselves) to believe.

What's the point? The point is that Microsoft's grand vision of the future doesn't do a lot for those of us who must live in proximity to the present. People are not going to rush out and buy new computers and make willy-nilly upgrades and purchases of the latest barely proven technologies in order to gratify Microsoft's ambitions. People are going to stretch their dollars and ride it out with equipment and software that does the job, and VFP is still one of the best tools around.

It doesn't make good business sense for Microsoft to kill VFP, but they're doing it just the same, on that we seem to agree. Maybe it's a personal thing, I don't know, but I don't think a smart thing. Speaking of arguments unrefuted, there's one you really missed, John. The issue isn't whether Microsoft will market VFP, it's whether Microsoft will ever even allow it to be marketed effectively. Of course you are right that what we've seen so far is not "marketing". It hardly even qualifies as promotion. Let's get the sequence right, John. First comes a tiny bit of cheap, credible promotion, like mention in the appropriate newsletters, and removal of obvious obstacles to any effective marketing effort by anyone. This is the stuff that costs Microsoft nothing. If we can't achieve that much, we may as well throw in the towel.

Here's where a lot of people in the VFP community seem to miss the point. They say "What are you worried about? VFP is alive and kicking, and VFP marketing is looking better than ever." Of course no one expects to see much sign of life in the job market for a while. That's the problem. Implosion, like death, is a very nonlinear event. The momentum of collapse can be irreversible. That's where the VFP job market is headed, no matter what the hell Microsoft thinks it's doing to keep VFP on life support. Microsoft's obstruction of VFP is not only stupid and self-destructive, but above all it harms us. If some of us are becoming rather pissed off about all of this, I'm sure you will understand very well.

Believe it or not, I tend to look at the bright side, and I see an opportunity to save this dismal situation. While the economy is moving in slow motion, Microsoft still has a chance to make it look as if their promises to the FoxPro community were in earnest. But if they continue on the present course, when the rebound occurs, we'll see the final dead fox bounce, because the FoxPro job market will have evaporated, and all of us will be thinking about other ways of making a living. If that's the way it has to be, don't expect us to come like a herd of sheep to Microsoft's next party. Don't underestimate the power of righteous indignation when coupled with free speech.

Mike

>I know I have said this before - only to return. This time however, times and circumstances are different. On one hand, I love VFP and what it can do. On the other hand, I recognize the realities that so many fail to recognize.
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>I have said all I can say. It has been heard and understood and at times, both well and not so well received.
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>To avoid dilution of that message - by getting into personal issues, it is best that I leave the Fox Community. The difference this time is that I will focus my attentions on VS .NET on forums here on the UT, DevX, and the public newsgroups.
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>Following my own advice, I will not dump VFP as a development tool. It is a cash cow I will continue to milk to pay the bills. I will not however make any more investments in the product. I have a choice - devote time to VFP which has seen far more days than it has ahead of it or devote time to VS .NET - which I think has a promising future.
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>I have paid the price in that much of what I have said for several years know has cost me some friendships. Of course, one could argue that in reality, those people were aquaintances and not friends. True friends have stuck by me with the feeling that some good came from "JVP keeping it real.."
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>It requires far too much energy to stay out of the personal issues here. Will I still have an opinion as far as VFP is concerned? Yes. The difference is that opinion will come from the outside - not the inside. By being on the outside, there is a much better chance that things will be viewed on an objective - less emotional level.
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>In spite of what some may think, I don't like being the center of attention. Yet, that is often where I find myself. I don't think much good can come from that. So with that, I will simply remove myself from the situation. No matter how personal things get here, I will take comfort that as far as my detractors are concerned, that is all they can do. I will not join the fray to defend myself.
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>The points I have raised, which have not been substantively addressed or refuted, stand on thier own. I don't say things in the hope of making friends. So, if people get offended or think I am the biggest asshole for saying these things, I at least can take comfort in knowing that it is better to be an asshole with a clue as opposed to just being an asshole... I see it as nothing more than part of the territory. Looking at the mirror, I can take comfort that I said what I believed and have excellent facts to back up that believe as being reasonable.
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>If I had 100 friends and had to give up 99 and only keep 1 - and in return I was true to thy self - that 1 friend was worth more than the other 99 times 10. I take pride that I chose a side, chose a position and stood up for it.
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>Good luck..