Rodman,

>Yes people are still doing lots of development using VB 6.0 and Visual FoxPro, etc. I am still doing lots of both. I don't think it's realistic to just begin rewriting applictions wholesale.

I agree. I don't see any compelling reasons at this point to start rewriting existing applications in .NET.... yet. Just like I didn't see any reasons to immediately begin rewriting exsiting FP 2.hard applications to VFP 3 in the early days of VFP.

>However, the future of development for the MSFT platform is pretty clear. MSFT is moving forward rapidly with .NET. Hell, I see commercials on TV about .NET. VFP developers need to be prepared for the future and now is the time to get ready.

I'll relate this to my experience "preparing for the future" in the pre VFP 3 days. I remember hearing from the "gurus" of the day that the best thing you could do to prepare for VFP 3 was to "play" with VB3 and with Access. I think that was very good advice. My first exposure to VFP 3 was not nearly as shocking as it would have been it I hadn't been playing with VB 3 beforehand.

So, is .NET going to be around in the future? Uh, yeah. Would it be a good idea to start investigating what all this .NET stuff is about? Uh, yeah.

Seems to make sense to me and my simple mind... < s >

>I think VFP( and VB 6.0) developers need to invest in learning .NET now, while they still have work and whild time is on their side.

Exactly... while there is still VB 6 and VFP work in the inbox paying the bill, now is a great time to get ready for the day when the inbox will contain .NET work.

>Instead of developing that web service in VFP why not do it in ASP.NET. The VB.NET language is not that different from VFP. Yes there is a learning curve for people but that's most of the fun isn't it ?

I'll argue that point... learning fun? Nah..... < g > Your primary point makes sense though. If you're going to go the web service route, why not take advantage of the opportunity to familiarize yourself with .NET.

>Is .NET mature ? Hell NO! For instance; we are doing .NET dev now and are using some 3rd party grid controls. These controls have problems but are sufficient for now. Will it get better ? Absolutely!

Sounds like an arguement that surfaced during the VFP 3 days... < g > Did VFP 3 get better? Are we glad it did?

>Visual FoxPro programmers now have the chance to be some of the best .NET programmers. Why not take that OOP experience and put it to work in this new and uncharted territory.

DING! DING! DING!!! We have a winner!!!! Take your average VB developer...while the switch to VB.NET may cause a bump or two along the way, they'll be pretty comfortable picking up the new langauge of VB.NET. BUT, what they will struggle with will be the other OOP issues we've already overcome and mastered. I'm convinced that the language issues involved with migrating a VFP developer to VB.NET will NOT be that big a challenge. Couple that with the exsiting OOP skills your typical VFP developer already has and I see a typical VFP developer exceling with .NET faster than your typical VB developer. The biggest hurdle I see for VFP developers is the notion of treating data as an object. Its one of the toughest things I try to get across in our Advanced VFP training classes.