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>Because opinions can't be disputed. You can dispute the basis upon which an opinion is made. And FWIW, I don't think the basis in this case can be disputed. That said, people should either work on diputing the assertion or back off. People are quick to say that I have zero hard evidence. I have some but for the most part, what I have is circumstantial. I have pointed to actual things with a reasonable amount of detail. It is not my problem if people have a difficult or impossible time disputing those things...
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>>I don't doubt for one moment that you could find cases where a manager's concerns were eased with the video. In the aggregate, will it make a material difference? I say it won't. Others will say it does. To boost my point, I simply look at what has changed? Is the world different today than before the video? No. Does the frequency of Fox ommissions remain about the same? Yes.
><<

Isn't that what I was saying? (and Steve)

The contention is that it has gotten worse for all, not just VFP developers compared X-language/technology developers. Overall the market is down, in the same proportion to everybody.

Are you agreeing with this here?

>As far as being a valuable tool in the consulting business, I highly doubt that. One would have to get face time first. The fact is, if Fox is not even on the radar screen of languages to be considered, do you think a decision maker is going to spend time letting your go through the process of convincing him to use something he does not want to use? And, for verification, if he calls his local MS guy, do you think the local MS rep is going to tell the guy "Sure, go ahead and forget implementing .NET, just use Fox instead.." If you think this is or will happen, you are dreaming the impossible dream.
>

No, I am not thinking this. The example was in the context of a consultant trying to sell services and/or goods. But I think somebody like me can use it if say someone up the chain would be apprehensive of my use of VFP to build internal solutions. So the video does not have a dramatic impact to VFP developers overall, but it has its use.

>
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>But they didn't did they? The same folks that bitch and moan about the lack of exams are the same people that would never sit for the exams in the first place. The same people that bitch and moan about a lack of Tech Ed sessions are the same people that would not go to tech ed anyway.
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>I think it is fairly common knowledge that there is a wide gap between the numbers of expected test takers and actual test takers.
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No argument here. I did my piece and took the exam.

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>Hold on...You are bypassing verifiable observations on my part without comment. Do you have a comment? Perhaps they are observations and facts that cannot be disputed.
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And I have no intention of disputing these observations. This is not news, we've known and discussed for years the notorious neglect of VFP in favor of other tools and technologies. But I believe it is getting better, albeit in a slow manner.

The positive change I see from the powers that be is that there have been several attempts to expose non-VFP developers to VFP. Good examples of that would be Erik Moore's article on the MSDN mag and VFP's presence in the gotdotnet site.

>I don't think Ken's absense from these threads is a validation of what I am saying. However, I would bet the ranch and the dog that if you asked him off line if whether my observations are accurate and I have taken a reasonable interpretation of events, he would probably say there is merit to what I have said. For sure, the issue about upgrades is dead on. He said as much on the UT a few months ago.
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>Your kidding me, right???? I think the ratio is probably 100 VB jobs to 1 VFP job. As a quick non-scientific test, I went to monster.com. Here are the search phrases and stats for the entire country for the Information Technology Category:
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>foxpro - 53
>visual foxpro - 35
>vfp - 1
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>basic - 1856
>visual basic - 1302
>vb - 1282
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>here they are for dice, for all categories and the entire country:
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>foxpro - 47
>visual foxpro - 36
>vfp - 9
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>basic - 2218
>visual basic - 1168
>vb - 1076
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>justfoxprojobs.com only had 32 entries in the database.
>justvbjobs.com had 932 entries.
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>I have no idea what the quality/pay etc of the jobs are. All that counts is the raw number of opportunities that exist. This is about as hard evidence as you can get. There are those that would like to say and argue that VFP downturns are in the same proportion as every body else. Here is a stat for you: From about 7 years ago, Fox jobs are down about 75-95%.
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The point was that VFP developers are weathering the downturn in the same proportion as other developers. We would need to compare this numbers with past ones. And 7 years ago was the age of the switch from FPW and VFP, a mile away from what has been discussed.

FWIW, the number of VFP positions does not seem to have eroded as bad as the VB ones, but of course I have no way of verifying that since I do not have numbers from a couple of years ago.

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>Nevertheless, it was as important to diversify your skillset and remain marketeable then as it is now. Of course the alternative to remain marketeable is by just being damn good, in which case you can beat most odds. :)
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>>Being good with the right tools in the box is what counts... <<

I think we can agree here.

>>An average VB developer has more opportuntiies than than an advanced VFP developer..

But an average VB developer in a downturn will have to compete with the multitudes of other VB developers looking out for jobs. So I don't think he'll have more opportunity but less.