>>>There are a lot of things collected last time related to VFP grids, and it seems a good idea to organize materials well and write a book with all information collected.
>>>
>>>It would be good to know the opinion of you, folks:
>>>
>>>- Is it needed to devote the book for VFP grids? The book just for a single control in VFP?
>>
>>Absolutely not; you're locking yourself into a market of people whose sole
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>***snip***
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>>From a commercial standpoint, a grid builder utility that could be added to any of the common frameworks would be a commercially more viable product.
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>I always figured that an author of a book, or a creator of a utility, hopes to profit not from sales of the book or utility but from the increased exposure in the developer's community. Of course, I don't know how much such things can benefit someone already as well-known and respected as, say, John Koziol.

Much as John is (and was) respected, it would've been a nice gesture if it generated enough financial gratification for a nice quiet dinner at a good restaurant for him and Teresa, his wife, and covered the cost of a sitter while they got to enjoy a quiet evening together.

And much as we'd like to think that the idea of shareware works, it's a very rare thing for a significant piece of work like FRX2WORD to become even a mild commercial success. The shareware model of software development is unfortunately flawed, especially in the developer community; for all the effort people put in trying to protect their IP from piracy, it's at least a bit hypocritical to not compensate the good work of other talented developers but put infinite effort into trying to copy-protect a piece of code they blew out with the VFP App Wizard.

There's a lot of great VFP freeware or bookware out there - in addition to FRX2WORD, some things like Christof's STRUCT, Erik Moore's eView, JVP's ADO JumpStart whitepaper, Nigel Coates' MAPIMail, Jim Booth and Steve Sawyer's NewRI stuff, Drew Speedie's SCX/VCX hacking tools, the Chapter Code from KiloFox, maybe even some of my stuff like ClsHeap or API_APPRUN. Aside from Steve and Jim, who put in a lot of effort to improve NewRI even after the book went to print, and Marcia, Andy and Rick, who've added to the stuff for KiloFox and came up with some great sample code after KiloFox went to print, I doubt that any of the examples had any direct financial impact, and even for the book authors, it was more a matter of personal pride in workmanship and making a contribution to the VFP community was more of an issue.

The VFP community doesn't realize the wealth of talent and prodigious work that some of the people in it have put into their work. I'm sure we've lost a few people along the way through disppointment in not even having received recognition for the massive contribution of time and effort they've made.

I don't even bother to try shareware distribution; most of my stuff is a bit esoteric, it's not prettily documented and presented, and I'd be kidding myself to believe that I'd generate enough shareware income to cover the cost of the coffee I'd need to slog through to add features that others want. I'm not running the same API_APPRUN or ClsHeap that I've released, for several reasons. First and foremost is that in many cases the initial release served the purpose I'd had for the release - any extensions were done to satisfy my needs and curiosities, or I've established have a commercial value, and will offer it to my clients either explicitly or as a part of my services as a developer. In lots of cases, I'll release an updated version, but it'll be on my schecule with the features I think it should have. I release the source so that if your issues don't match mine, you're free to modify it, and if someone makes fixes or suggestions that add to my product, I'll release an updated version and credit them for their contribution. But I've long since given up on the idea of achieving fame and fortune for the half-dozen file offerings or few dozen FAQ entries I've offered. The best that can be said is I have managed to thoroughly peeve certain individuals who hopefully will continue to make their dislike of my message style and content known in circles invisible to me, and it's nice to see a code snippet every once in a while and say to myself - "Hey, that's my code they're using!"

Yeah, I'm still the same pompous ass I was yesterday; I'm just better edumacated and a bit more cynical about it.

Vlad probably could write an entire book on the grid control and it's behavior as both a dataset binding control and a hierarchical container, and it'd be worth a read for a lot of people. But he'd probably produce more portraits of dead presidents writing a kick-ass Grid Builder for a reasonable price than writing a book on it. Even if he writes the Great Grid Novel of the early 21st century, the same questions will get asked here that are asked now, and even if everyone shouts "READ VLAD'S BOOK - IT COVERS THAT PERFECTLY", it's not going to sell many extra copies. Maybe if he can get Sergey to point to his book by page and chapter whenever a Grid question comes up, like he does with files, FAQs and MSKBs... < g,d&r >

So again, I think Vlad'd see a better return on creating the Great VFP Grid Builder replacement that can be integrated with all the major frameworks the way Doug Hennig's SDT can be fitted to them might be a better course of action if a commercial return on time invested were the issue.