Hi Denis,

As you know, VFP does have to compete with solutions based on VB, Access, SQL Server, etc. VFP is fairly unique in that it is has an IDE, language, OOP, and database all wrapped in one product. Besides dBase, you will be hard pressed to find a product that competes directly with those features, and VFP is certainly the most popular of the genre.

Also, I think the VFP release schedule did improve by removing it from Visual Studio. VFP 7 was released several months before Visual Studio .NET, and VFP 8 was just released. The next release of VS .NET is considered a minor upgrade (think 1.1), and is priced accordingly. VFP 8 is clearly a major upgrade, and we may see VFP 9 before the next major version of VS .NET.

All of us know we have to put aside some time to learn and improve our skills, whether we are learning about VFP or something else. I don't know everything about VFP (does anyone?), but I feel comfortable enough with my knowledge to work on just about any VFP project. Therefore, I allocate most of my learning time to get familiar with other things like .NET and Linux. Sure, it is not as good as working with the product on a daily basis, but at least I have a clue. Uh..., at least I think I do. <g>

>Congratulations to all of you guys involved in the development of the upcoming VFP 8. I saw a presentation about it and downloaded the beta. I'll probably upgrade to it.
>but...
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>I'm questioning myself and apparently you <g>, where do VFP fit?
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>There are magazines doing evaluation of different tools evolving around data base management. Frequently VFP is'nt mentioned. It seems that this is the case because VFP does not belong in those categories.
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>We can't compare it to Access, we can't compare it to SQL Server. What is it's competition?(Please don't tell me you don't know about the competition. I'd believe you as much as if you said that the operating system division is not aware of Linux.)
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>After having established it's competition. How do VFP evolved compared to that competition?
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>What is it's forces compared to the competition?
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>what is it's weaknesses compared to the competition?
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>What can you do with it that the other products can't do?
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>VFP was supposed to be removed from the visual studio box so that new versions could be released without respecting the same timeframe as Visual Studio. That will effectively be the case because there won't be Visual Studio releases no more <g>. But kidding aside it looks very likely that it'll be released very closely to the next version of Visual Studio .Net
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>My question is : What did the VFP community gain there?
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>I know that Microsoft is pushing .Net a lot. Based on that what is VFP's future. It must have one because it's one of the few (if not the only) major development language made by Microsoft that is not a part of .Net.
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>The way things are going I'm sure eventually there is going to be a new standard for processing data amongst all Microsoft tools (XML + .Net + SQL Server + Office or whatever). So that involves nothing proprietary to one platform. Why would anyone want to continue using VFP based on that?
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>Rumours has it that Microsoft invested a lot of money in .Net so IT HAS TO BECOME SUCCESSFULL. So it's good bet that no developer can go wrong learning it. It'll probably adapt easily to other development products made by Microsoft or other Microsoft products will adapt easily to the .Net vision. What is the VFP vision?
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>Those questions are not meant to bug you. I asked them because I really like VFP and I can't afford to learn .Net while continuing using/developing VFP. I'm sorry but I don't have that time on my hand.
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>So your answer will determine if I upgrade to VFP 8 or if I stop using it right away to get on the .Net train.
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>P.S. Could you please in your reply leave everything as it is right now so I can reply without having to do some cut & paste elsewhere if needed.