>>>I only have one thought to add to this thread. This is, I always seem to be seeing in some way, shape or form, the abilities and advantages of VFP and FoxPro 2.x before that being undermined by, pardon the adjectives but, misinformed idiots. This thread can answer another threads question of why there seem to be more jobs for VB than VFP. If the DevDays agenda goes as suggested then VB will be seen as M$ developing cornerstone while VFP is just a third rate afterthought.
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>>There is more VB developers that VFP developers. That is because both products are focus for 2 different audiences. We can't compare both. They are dedicated for their own market. You have about 1/10th of today's application which required a powerful database and CLS front-end and full OOP engine - just to name a few big names. The rest is mostly small applications where VB can do the job and VFP might be overkill.
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>>As for a third rate, this is also related to big companies boycotting VFP. I've seen big companies throwing thousands and millions to the window because they have to remain in VB environment to develop big database application which requires also OOP. Yes, I mention OOP because for most of those companies, they thing VB is OOP. It is also related in part to the fact that VB is shown everywhere and IS people thing this is the bible. We also saw some evaluations from a big company, not the mention the name, where big companies are reading their evaluations as a bible as well. On the other end, as stated yesterday, VFP as survived without having marketing, at least, far from what VB had. But, this didn't help to have VFP recognized by many corporations where it is totally forbidden to use VFP to develop and where the requirements of some applications are to do develop in OOP and benefit of full powerful database and C/S engine. Yes, I always missed that part and always found that to be a
>>joke.
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>What Paul said about FoxPro surviving from FoxBASE to VFP 5 all on its own merits is absolutely true. This said, it just makes my head reel to think how popular VFP would and should be, especially for companies like you've described, if M$ had promoted it as well as they have VB. These companies have shunned VFP because the implied message from M$ all these years has been that it's a platform to shun because it will never survive. Personally, I think things have started to take a turn for the better for VFP promotion by M$ but it's still not enough. I get the impression that when the next versions of VFP and Visual Studio are released concurrently that there will be a bigger focus on VFP which is good. But that focus will only be noticed by developers unless M$ directs their VFP promotion towards the user market (our potential clients) as a great tool for developing custom apps. We all know VFP is great, M$ needs to let everyone else know that VFP is great. :-)

I would like to see Microsoft provide a valid (good/better) description for each component of Visual Studio. The link in the KB to "Choosing the appropriate tool" is dead, but I don't remember it as being very helpful. George Goley's summary of (what came to be) each part of Visual Studio is quite good. It provides clear directions on which tools should be used for which type of project. Of course there is some overlap.

Looking at http://www.microsoft.com/vstudio/

The description of each tool does not differentiate between each or provide a clear choice for developers

VB - quickly create component-based applications targeting the Internet,
intranet and traditional client/server environments.
VC - build powerful ActiveX™ component-based applications,
key to integrating client/server and Internet technologies.
VFP-you can develop quality desktop and client/server database applications.
VJ - Build pure Java applets and applications or optionally extend
them with ActiveX integration

Only VJ++ seems to be targetted a different audience. Clearly these descriptions should indicate that VFP has some clear advantages over VB, and vice versa. You and I know that these are very different tools, but these desc make them quite similar. Information like the above IMHO is what leads to confusion amoung developers and IT managers.

Using the above criteria, why choose VFP?, It doesn't appear distinguish itself.