>I am curious to know if MSFT has/will have to tell the world why VFP is not in Visual Studio.NET. Have there been any press releases? Or is it our job to defend every time someone says that VFP is MIA because it is not part of Visual Studio any more?

David,

There was 'lively' discussion about this around a year ago.

In the end the major reasons given for moving VFP7 "out of the box" were things like:

1) VFP can live by its own delivery schedule, not being tied to a VS delivery date;
2) VFP can have its own marketing, playing to its own strengths rather than be diluted by tons of other VS stuff.

I think that both are reasonable myself, though I was (am) concerned about exactly what you raise. Some might even see it (incorrect though it is) as a re-orphaning of the red-headed step-child.

I think that a major factor in the decision was that VFP's feature set did NOT fit well with the CLR concept that forms a major platform of VS.NET's character.

I hope this helps
Jim