Peter, I had not missed your original thread at all.

You made points in it that are very similar to what I have been saying for a very long time now.

The reason that I didn't respond to yours was simply this: every time that I make a comment about MS VFP Team's poor handling of bugs a common group of MVPs immediately jump in, state the MS "policy" and defend MS and generally make snide remarks to confirm to readers that I am a first-class a**hole (something that I am quite used to, but they seem to get a kick out of it).

They do NOT read what I have to say - they just trot out their prepared responses.
For instance, what does "policy" have to do with it since VFP is now in a position to "go its own way"? I wonder how any policy is ever changed if it is not by something 'stretching' it a bit and it becoming evident that not much of consequence was hurt after all.
Or the "fact" that it takes a LOT OF WORK for a KB article to be published. Who cares???? One makes sufficient overhead in a procedure that it becomes onerous and then claims that overhead makes it too difficult to keep on top of things! What a crock! In my thinking such a procedure needs fixing, not complimenting! What good is a KB if 95% of the bugs reported here and accepted by MS do not appear in it 8 months after the fact??????

They are fond of stating that it "ain't a bug if it ain't reproducible", totally IGNORING the point about the complexity of the environment that VFP runs in AND that VFP itself has - formsets, forms, modless, modal, default datasession, private datasession, SET EXACT, SET xxxx, PEMS set in Property-sheet/PEMS set in code; .DBC or free, tables/local-views/remote-views and combinations, and TONS of other things. Of course it is HIGHLY LIKELY that a bug will not be reproducible on a first attempt (just look at bugs reported/accepted here to get the idea) yet the present practise is a perfectly acceptable approach to those who accept and defend the status quo.

The MS VFP bug reporting system is simply a BLACK HOLE - anything that goes in never comes out and it is sucking all of us in to doing work (lots, in many cases) for absolutely NO RETURN to those doing that work. This is not the type of system worthy of continued support by anyone.

Good luck in your quest. I'm not giving up on this, though I do limit my posts on the matter to messages that suggest the great COST (to individual developers) of perpetuating the status quo.

cheers
Jim


>On the 10th I started a thread #643062 in the category Chatter with the title 'What do we do with the discoverer of a BUG'. Yesterday evening I felt kind of disappointed about the lack of reactions. But this morning I found out that there ARE reactions, plenty even, although it's in another (this) thread.
>
>Jim, I must say that I fully agree with you! See also my reaction to Nadya on the 11th, copied hereunder. I also invited Ken Levy to participate. Once more I do invite him.
>
>>[Nadya Nosonovsky wrote..]
>>Here is the offical URL for reporting bugs http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fsupport%2Fvfoxpro%2Freport%2Freport%2Easp
>
>Nadya, thanks for the tip. However, on that page I read:
>
>"We regret that we are unable to respond personally to reports received through this page. If the problem you are reporting requires direct one-on-one support from Microsoft, or if you require a response or resolution, please visit the MSDN Online Support Home page for information about obtaining technical support."
>
>Moreover, there's no possibility to attach a zipfile.
>
>So, MS wants me to invest time to send a report. But MS feels no obligation to respond to me personally, not even when it's about a BUG! I know MS offers 'personal contact options', but these cost money. Why on earth does MS want money from people who send bugreports?!
>
>No, I want PERSONAL ATTENTION when I send a bugreport! I take time to report the bug, not because I'm a shareholder of MS, but first of all because I'm probably having a real problem with coding something and I want a solution of some kind, and second, I want to be recognized as the 'discoverer'. It should be a win-win situation. I'll not gonna spend hours on producing a bugreport when I'm not assured that it's read and handled seriously.
>
>If Ken is reading along with us, please Ken, join this thread!