Bravo Ken.

I've been reading this never-ending thread for sometime, and have been reading over alot of the debate between using VB.NET or C#.NET. I, for the most part, have not commented mostly because I am way less experienced than probably the most inexperienced person on this thread.

However, some suggestions for those in debate, go down to your local borders or other book store, or search the web for tutorials on each. Write something simple in each language and judge for yourself which to choose. Don't rely on the opinions of anybody else unless they plan on coding for you. Most of the differences between the two languages are minor and will barely be crossed in your mainstream programming. Research the real differences and between the two languages and try to determine if any are of immediate concern. If not, simply use the language you prefer. The major difference seems to be that of synatx where some prefer the more compact c# others prefer the more verbose VB. There are some people who have made a decision for themselves and believe the rest of the world should follow in their footsteps, not understanding that what may work for them doesn't work for everybody, and that it's okay for the person next to them to make a different decision.

Now for the reason I'm responding to this particular thread. It's pretty obvious that the point Ken stresses here is of more importance than the question between using C# or VB. Anybody who has knowledge of both Visual FoxPro and a .NET language (ANY .NET language) is at a far greater advantage than anyone strictly focused on the supported languages of .NET. Among many other reasons, often times SQL Server is overkill (and an expensive overkill at that), a spot FoxPro fills very nicely. To illustrate, a jigsaw can often be used to do the work of a circular saw, however, a circular saw can do the job it was designed for far more efficiently and yet sometimes both are overkill and a hand saw is all that's required. Then again sometimes a small handsaw is used to perfect the cuts of another saw. Wouldn't it be smarter and more effective to have all these tools (or at least the ones that fit your personal line of work better) at your disposal rather than trying to choose one or the other?

Just an observation.

Aloha,

James

>>Ken, I was so disappointed when I over heard you speaking at EssentialFox with a VFP Developer that was asking for advise on moving over to .NET.
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>I'm not sure what you are referring to. I have never advised a single VFP developer to move away from VFP to anything. What you may have heard is me advising someone who is considering learning and using .NET (with or without VFP) to focus more on VB.NET over C# if they have a chose because it is probably easier to learn and possibly a better investment over time. You never heard me state or advise anyone to move or migrate away from VFP. There is interesting in having people use .NET "with" VFP, they work very well together.
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>>> >I expected an answer such as: "Why are you dropping VFP?" or "Why not use a mixture of .NET and VFP?" No. Your answer without a split second of hesitation was, "Use VB.NET." At a VFP conference? I could see doing this at a .NET conference. <<
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>You must have heard what I said to that person out of context. I recall about two people at EssentialFox saying they are required to use VS .NET and not VFP on an upcoming project and they asked a question about it.
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>>> If you keep doing things like this there isn't gonna be any more VFP conferences because you encourage everyone to use VB.NET. Maybe you should try to encourage the use of both .NET and VFP. <<
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>Only people learning or using .NET. If you had heard my keynote session at EssentialFox or Prague last week, you'd know that they message is Visual FoxPro "with" .NET. Check out the web site at http://gotdotnet.com/team/vfp with information and resources about VFP with .NET, together. Microsoft is actively working on the next version of VFP code named Toledo which will be a very exciting version of VFP. I hope my reply clarifies your mis-understandings here.