MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN

On the night mighty Babylon fell to the Persians, this writing appeared on the palace wall: "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN" (Dan. 5:25), written with the finger of G**. The king of Babylon was having a huge drunken party––they felt safe and secure inside the city with its massive walls. Then came the sudden appearance of the handwriting on the wall, which put an end to the party and replaced revelry with terror; and adding to their bewilderment, no one could as much as read the writing, let alone interpret what it meant!
Then the terrified king called for Daniel the prophet. By the light of a candlestick, Daniel both decoded and interpreted the writing. It foretold the immediate end of Babylon and her king. So it came to pass: On that same night the king of Babylon was slain by her Persian conquers; a new era was born

Daniel,5:24 Then was the part of the hand sent from him: and this writing was written

Daniel, 5:25 And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

Daniel, 5:26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE: G** hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

Daniel, 5:27 TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

Daniel, 5:28 PERES: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Perisians.

Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.

The VFP “kingdom” has been numbered and M$ has effectively finished it as a marketable software development paradigm.

Our technology has been weighed and found wanting. It is pretty weighty, I’ll give them that … and, it has been found wanting … marketing dollars.

The kingdom truly is divided now, by the very conference that promotes Fox.

The writing is upon the walls of Babylon boys and girls ... BUT THEN AGAIN ... MAYBE NOT ... read on.

For ten years we, the faithful, have listened to rumors of the demise of the Fox. That demise depends upon one thing - PROFITS. Who generates those profits? The answer is: YOU DO, for M$ does not market Fox and by default it is not growing market share. Who generates the expenses? The answer is the employees and contractors of M$ who are on the Fox team.

The formula for Fox’s demise is simple arithmetic and is presented in an Accounting context as follows:

Income (to M$) = Revenues (You and those you influence) – Expenses (VFP Team)

All of us are capitalists. I don’t believe a whole lot of text is required to convince anyone of that. Microsoft, as a company, is capitalistic. I also don’t believe a whole lot of text should be wasted convincing anyone of that either. What we, the Fox developers, must consider is this simple accounting fact. Will M$ continue to support VFP when Income goes negative? No one outside “The Management Team” can ever know the answer to that question. I certainly don’t proclaim to. I, however, do proclaim to be able to think and logically derive a conclusion (although many of my friends at Flash would just LOVE to debate this fact :-).

Here it is:

The VFP community markets itself … PERIOD. Ken’s voice aside I don’t see any marketing coming out of M$ that tries to increase the Revenues part of the equation … that’s MARKET SHARE for those of you who are economically challenged. Please, correct me if I’m wrong but I didn’t see Mr. Balmer’s face on national TV promoting VFP as a corporate solution. I do, however, see the result of millions of dollars of advertising .NET’s, One Degree of Separation. This means that, by default, the Revenues generated by Fox are probably on the decline … in business terms our tool, at best, is in it’s MATURE phase of the marketing model … and well OUT of the GROWTH phase.

The premier VFP conference, FoxPro Advisor DevCon, provided no less than 12 sessions on .NET … out of a total of 71 (approximately … if you count and tell me the ratio is really 11/72 I really won’t consider your argument as material). But more importantly, the “buzz” was NOT about the great new features presented with VFP but which language should I learn, VB.NET or C#, and why … Ken’s statement of VFP 8.0 as being the best release since VFP 3.0 not withstanding. As always ... there are at least two unbelievably astounding productivity tools that make VFP 8.0 worth the upgrade price.

Previously, I’d have said this was frightening. It no longer is, really. It’s destiny. It is time to increase your skill set. Why? Because VFP has become what it always was … a tool … to be used along with others in the solutions of business problems … VFP is NOT a development paradigm … and it never will be … because M$'s marketing dollars SAY it won’t be ... but that doesn't mean it has to die.

Permit me, for a moment, to break the thread of thought for the next few paragraphs (think of this as a FoxTalk sidebar). Those of you who harp upon the “Death of Fox” without a valid premise, brand yourselves as non-visionaries and foolish people. To illustrate I go back to the strategic management theories of IBM upon the emergence of the computer. Prior to the computer, IBM capitalized on solving problems with business machines like typewriters. However, strategic management realized that they (IBM) were not (as a company) in the business of selling typewriters. Instead, they were in the business of selling business solutions … using the BEST TOOL AVAILABLE (not to mention marketable) AT THE TIME. I advise you to take the same approach when it comes to your own skills as you are your own strategic management. Similarly, you should not be in the business of selling SOLELY Fox as a solution. Rather, you should be in the business of selling business solutions using the best tools that Microsoft has to offer, of which FOX is undeniably ONE of many. It is imperative that you focus upon solving the problems of your clients with significant deference given to the MARKETABILITY of the “tool” used to complete the job. PERCEPTION is very important. Is .NET the best tool for business solutions for the MASSES right NOW? Probably not. Will it become so in the next few years? Probably so, unless some marketing and technological blitz comes out of the Linux world in the next few months … doubtful at best.

I’ve listened to many people proclaim that VFP developers are among some of the best and capable “technicians” available for business solutions. Quaint and nostalgic, but based upon what I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot of code) many can’t design their way out of a wet and tattered paper bag. There are many reasons for this of course: lack of training funds, lack of executive management support, lack of interest, laziness, drunkeness (snicker, snicker) … just like the problems faced by many other developers in the world ... FOR WE WOULD ALL DEVELOP AWESOME APPLICATIONS ... IF ONLY (I also realize those of you who respond negatively to this are by default UT users and by default are among those who are tying to increase your skill set and better yourselves … so, even if every VFP user on the UT flames me for this statement the presence of those flames DO NOT prove this statement wrong as the people responding skew the statistical sample by default ... (so much for my 11th grade English class) ... but score one for MIS 231 and 232 (Business Statistics). Software development has such a low barrier to entry and high tolerance for failure that I am constantly appalled at the willing waste of billions of dollars of corporate funds upon absolutely crappy solutions … the first question out of any potential client’s mind should be …what is your architecture … many companies could never answer this question reliably … anywho … I begin to rant).

That theory of VFP developer competence was proposed by several conference attendees and speakers, and was based upon the assumption that over 10 years ago we were able to master a NEWLY INTRODUCED object oriented environment to solve business solutions (not to mention that we had to understand some very complicated concepts to produce a “nice” solution). The point being that many of us DID succeed at this. I can tell you that those in the C++ community (most assuredly) and VB community will certainly be able to accomplish what we did one decade ago with the new .NET paradigm.

VFP’ers, It is time we prove them right AGAIN but in the process leverage the advantages we gained over ten years ago. Will there be attrition? Yep. No doubt about it, the .NET paradigm will kill some of you. Will the cream rise to the top and persist? Without a doubt … for that is what THEY do. Heroism is the fortitude to endure just one more moment and endurance is a key here. Why must I consistently suffer listening to a great wailing and gnashing of teeth when it comes to this collision of VFP and .NET (my own wailing included I might add). SHUT UP and simply do again what we have proven ourselves capable of before… and in doing so reiterate to the “real” development community our true mettle.

Finally, let’s put faces upon on these numbers … Revenues (the positive in this equation) are the dollars M$ receives from the purchase of VFP from you and/or those you influence. The Expenses consist of the people who struggle each and every day to bring you another version of your beloved VFP: Calvin Hsia, Randy Brown, Beth Massi, Alan Griver, Mike Stewart and the three C++ developers + multiple contractors used to make VFP as great as it is. Your votes (measured in dollars) determine your destiny. Keep VFP alive … you’ve done a great job casting your votes so far. The question remains will you yourselves survive this new onslaught or will you bring about your own demise by proving to M$ that VFP is not great tool to keep in the M$ toolkit. Let’s not lose the genius of this team to another at M$ simply because we don't effectively market our own upgrade.

Respectfully,

CTBlankenship