>Hi Michel,
>
>I though Microsoft and Dot Net were Synonymous. Isn't Visual FoxPro a microsoft product?

No, one is a subset of the other - all poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles. Microsoft offers a wide array of non-dotNet products, and a number of third party vendors such as MicroFocus are offering dotNet products without being directly affiliated with MS.

>
> Microsoft Visual FoxPro
> Dot Net Visual FoxPro
>
>Although an application written in Visual FoxPro will not currently compile under the CRL, Visual FoxPro is basically compatible with Dot Net in the sense that it runs under windows, integrate with Dot Net, support Dot net, and even greatly enhances Dot Net as a language/platform. I think Visual FoxPro will become more closely coupled to Dot Net over the next few years and this would be good start to reflect the alliance. Anyway, I believe the day will come when all window applications must be Dot Net compatible to run under Microsoft's OS, whatever it might be named at that time. I want Dot Net Visual FoxPro to be alive and well when that day arrives.

The problem with this statement is that many products have similar interoperability - they can consume web services via SOAP, are able to make use of dotNet packages via COM InterOp, and can create COM-compliant components which can be consumed by dotNet via InterOp. VFP has made tremendous strides towards a relatively seamless integration of its non-dotNet components with dotNet components. Our own developer community may well be our worst enemy here - they feel small and inadequate in pissing contests when they can't produce managed code. There's far less anti-VFP sentiment in my experience in the user community when you can show them VFP apps doing their job today, and explain that the real meaning of .NET to the small business user is Not Even Tomorrow... < g >