Aaron:

I would be really surprised if VFP went away. I don't see any other tool in their product line more capable of building traditional desktop and client server databases. The demand for these kinds of applications is never going to go away. Actually, I think we may see people returning to the desktop for fat client web apps using web services and SOAP messaging because problems with browser standards conformance. VFP is a the best tool I know of for building a fat client web app.

I just finished a complete ASP.net app written in C# that talked to a VFP Web Service. I was very happy with results until I viewed it in the latest version of Netscape 6.2. It looked completely hosed! My point is, there is no such thing as cross browser compatibility unless you resort to a lowest common demonator solution of HTML3.2. I invite you to visit my test site and view this app I'm working on in both Netscape and IE. You won't believe what you see. The aspservercontrols simply don't work in any version of Netscape.

cbfctest1.dynip.com/wwatsclient/login.aspx

username = cbf
password = muffin

To tell you truth, I don't want to deal with the above. I'm gonna start recommending to my customers we either standardize on IE or go with fat client front ends. I think a lot people may see the advantages of having a real application on the other end rather an HTML 3.2 thin client. And when they do, people may start looking to VFP.

Charlie