Do you take those people seriously as professionals?
My number of 10,000 was meant to mean people who worked with Fox and actually developed applications that didn't make Fox look bad and made more money than a manager at the local McDonalds.
I've seen Foxpro on resumes, but that is different than seeing apps on the screen.
I was hired last year to interview/hire a VFP developer as an in-house developer entirely responsible for finishing and extending a pretty complex app that had been developed over 5 years by a programming shop. One guy who had VFP 3.0, 5.0 and 6.0 on his resume (along with Delphi, Powerbuilder etc). I asked him what he would do if he ran into a development problem he couldn't handle (fishing for UT, CIS, Hackfox) - he said he thought there was a Help button. I asked another "FOxpro Developer" about class libraries - he said when he went to junior college they had a library.
>>>>I understand you are sincere in this question, but I think >I was just playing with some numbers in my head and they are probably all wrong but let's say there are 10,000 people who develop Fox full time and make their living from it.
>>>Based on what I know about book sales, and my sense that only a small percentage of the people who use any given product actually buy books for it, I think you're way low.
>>
>>So, how about sharing with us what you know about book sales and about where that percentage is?
>
>Sorry. I think the book sales info definitely falls into the category of proprietary business information.
>
>As for the percentage, I think fewer than a quarter of all VFP developers, maybe as few as 10%, own even one book on the subject. I've heard too many stories of people walking into FoxPro shops and finding the only books there to be the manuals. Don't forget that we don't get to walk into most of those places; if we're coming it, it's because they're willing to go beyond their own resources.
>
>Overall, a very small percentage of developers (in any language, I think) buy books, buy magazines, go to user groups, go to conferences, or participate in online forums.
>
>Tamar
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
