>
1) The number of people upgrading to VFP 7 is near (40%, 60%,...) the number of people using previous versions of VFP?
>

Even if it were 100%, would it make a difference? What would you rather have: 100% of the VFP market or 1% of the dotNET market? I would take the latter...

<
2) The number of people using VFP is growing?
<

Signs point to no... I have yet to have anybody show and prove a single upward trend in the VFP market. I put forth this challenge some time ago. Subscriptions, conferences, attendees, projects... you name it, it is a downward trend...


>
3) What is the estimated percentage of current VFP developers that will continue to use it in the next, say, two or three years?
<

Again, if it is 100% - the best case scenario, so what?

>
4) Those who have been traditionally using VFP, still use it as their #1 choice tool?
>

Here is a better question, how many VFP customers became MSDN customers?

Don't gloss over this one too quickly. It should give pause for thought.

When people ask you what you do: do you say "I am a software developer" or do you say "I am a Fox developer". If Fox developers were really *that* proud, they would say the latter. The old saying of 'I am not my developer tool' comes to mind. The faster people shed the emotional ties and think clearly about the wide array of options that are open, the better they will be.

>
Of course, it should be understood that there is no numeric answer to any of the questions above, and so they shouldn't be answered, rather I ask what folks think about the questions. The point here is:
>

And I have responded in kind...

>
1) What's happenning to the average VFP developer (he/she could still be called a genuine VFP developer)?
>

Ok...

>
2) Will they continue to be VFP developers, or they're slowly shifting to "new technologies", for new apps they develop, just keeping VFP as a legacy option? (as you said: "...If I did start hanging around again, it would definitely be from the standpoint of helping VFP developers make the transition to .NET, should that be what they want. In addition, I would definitely help to evangelize VB in the face of what I see to be misguided reasons for leaning toward C# ... Where you have idle time, you should invest it in learning .NET, and specifcally, VB In my opinion." - Message 655902 - is this a trend?)
>

Yes, I think this *is* the trend. Believe it or not, the world is much bigger than the few hundred or so that hang out here...


>3) It is worth (for MS) to keep a evolutionary path in VFP improvements? ("Interesting observation: Look at this year's devcon in Orlando. By my count, roughly 25% of the content is devoted to pure Fox. The other 75% is devoted to either .NET, SQL Server, or using Fox with either/both of those technologies. If that does not explain loud and clear where things are going, I don't know what does.?" - Message 655902 - is this a trend, too?)
>

Yep...

>
4) Who is leaving who? (MS leaving VFP or VFP developers leaving VFP, therefore...)
>

This is an interesting question. In case you have not realized it, many VFP customers have become MSDN customers. VFP developers are not going anywhere.
It is all about financial viability...


>I still use VFP, more than ever, and have no plans at all to leave it (believe it or not there is a big market where I live for desktop/file server/client/server apps, where nothing can beat VFP), and there is no passion in this statement, if reflects a commercial decision.
>

Don't you understand that nothing has to beat it? If VFP takes a second and something else takes a second and a half, that is good enough. Otherwise, if the technically "better" alternative would win, VFP would have been the dominate player. If you have a shrinked wrap application that uses Fox, I would say that you may be fine. Unless of course, you use DBF's. If you use SQL Server, Oracle or some other back end, I would say this solidfies your future. Here in the states, try getting through the front door of a lot of companies with VFP. For many, VFP is not on the approved langauges list. There is no question that for some time, there will be VFP developers who do just fine. But you know what, for every 1 that is doing well, I will be able to find 10 that are not doing so well. So you see, my message is not targeted at the 1-10% that are doing just fine. Rather, the message is targed at the 90-99% that are not doing so well or are in a position where they see the writing on the wall and where they now have to evalute their options.