First of all, i'm develop in Delphi, VFP (since 3) and now in VB.NET....

If you like the VFP language, is ok. I like me, too.... extreme more powerfull than VB and the best for data procces projects....

But "adding semicolons ALWAYS in Delphi which slows down the entire development process for ME" is extreme... no? Put a simple ";" realy NOT slown down nothing... except typing...But if this is the point in C/Java is more fasta the "{" and "}" than "procedure", "endproc", etc...

In terms of "entire development process" Delphi is really good. More than 200+ ready to go components, more than 200+ in the companion CD, plus all ActiveX found in your develpment machine... In contrast to less than 30 components in VFP/VB and the components found in the component repository is no very usefull...

And for general purpose, Delphi lead. VFp lack SO MUCH (or not can play) in the Internet/COM/COM+/MTS/ActiveX/API/GUI (the vfp Gui not impact so much...you note that when you use Delphi for client apps) XML (Delphi have compiler-xml support...not only a simple COM acces) Custom GUI components/ and others...

For database only... VFP lead! But for complete a enterprise-wide app you need use other tools (like delphi), buy ActiveX components, etc...

VFP is a very very very good language... is the lack of good support of MS...you know. Incredible, syntax higlithing in VFP 5 (Very-Old C language editor in DOS have this), Intellisense in 7 (Delphi & other have this 5 years-ago), poor support for COM/MTS (but in VFP 7 this is fix..rigth?)

THAT THINGS SLOW DOWN THE ENTIR DEVELOPMENT PROCCES. Type ; consume less than 1 sec... and for typing, is more fast C++ (But is more hard to read and mantaind=really things that slow down)

And i think that Delphi is more close to .NET than VFP. Vfp is a extrange and beaty language mix (OO support, Command language, Data language, Procedural)...

Delphi is more close to a true OO language...

(P.D: Not irritate! I understand you. For example I DONT LIKE C,PERL,JAVA and nothing similar to it. But maybe somebody reading this posts *think* that the prolem is the syntax...not the whole universe :)