>As for what Ken is up to, you might want to
>check out:
>
>
http://www.advisor.com/Articles.nsf/aid/LEVYK02That's reassuring. Especially since the VFP web page gets updated with MUCH lower frequency than my personal web page <g>.
I personally think of VFP as just one great tool in the toolbox. You can't beat it's cursor manipulation and speed, but you also wouldn't want to use this tool to build a skyscraper. I recently trained some people on how to access and update SQL Server databases with VFP remote views. They were blown away by how easy it was to make the connection, and by the fact that with the cursors you could use record OR SQL set oriented approaches, whichever suits the situation.
It certainly is understandable that people who have invested a lot of time to learn and master something like VFP are very concerned about the possibility of this tool being taken away from them. It is also undestandable that people who want to future proof themselves are hard at work learning .NET. But there is no inherent conflict here -- these two platforms DO talk to each other, after all.
VFP is probably going to stick around for a long time, due to its loyal user base. But it is also probably going to take on a different role than in years past in the overall software architecture scheme. I think it will be used much more in the middle tier than anything else. However, it will certainly continue to be a very viable alternative for building small footprint all-inclusive desktop database solutions for years to come, because it has everything you need from UI design to strong programming language to a good (if not perfect) database backend. There is nothing like it in the current MS arsenal of database software development tools.
Pertti
