JVB: The book on VFP was written long ago by people other than myself. I am merely the messenger of a message that you don't like.

Right. I wonder what that book is, what it said, and who wrote it. I wonder what the track record of those who did the writing? If it's anything like the track record of the person who did the selective listening, the selective interpretation, called it all a book, as if to try and give credence to unsubstantiated speculation. You fancy yourself a messenger; In reality, I propose that you are more like the confused principal character in a personal reverie.

JVB: Try submitting a Fox article to one of the major periodicals.

As one who subscribes to dozens of these publications, and possibly dozens of other minor publications, to this I say bullshit. Try submitting a VB article to one of the major periodicals. Try submitting a C# article to one of the major periodicals. Try submitting a Delphi article to one of the major periodicals.

Major publications do not do articles on languages unless it is to review them when they are new. Beyond that I suspect the odd appearance of a bandwagon article is to occasionally blow one of the principal advertisers.

Unless you consider only VBPJ / Visual Studio Magazine or MSDN magazine as major publications. (Judging from what you constantly spout, I'd be surprised if you read much of anything else). In this case I concede the point but these are biased by virtue of their prime advertiser or explicit sponsor. All the other major publications don't do this.

My personal opinion is if Rick Strahl were to submit most of his articles to major publications, most would be printed. That's because Rick's articles are, by and large, excellent, technology centric, with VFP implementation examples. But these are not Fox articles, these are design and implementation articles.

If you've not had luck submitting Fox articles to major publications, this may say more about you and the sort of articles you write than it says about Fox.

That said, I can understand that the editor of a major publication might ask for examples written in Java or C++ since this is where the major portion of the readership lies. That's fair enough in my opinion. To extrapolate this into the wider doomsday conclusion that you're always touting is incorrect

Another consideration is Fox developers, by and large, don't submit many articles for publication outside our circle. Again, to extrapolate this into the wider doomsday conclusion that you're always touting is again incorrect, but it fits rather well into your Modus Operandi.

So in short, I say bullshit to most of your self-serving rationales and conclusions.

**--** Steve