I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the analogy.

I created a story that encorportated two of the things in which I have an interest ... if it helps any I was thinking along the lines of a General Practitioner since I've been seeing one of them lately ... GP's have a certain amount they are willing to do and they have certain decision tree's they use to finally make a referral to a specialist ... or treat the problem themselves. As far as medical research and driving change and myriads amounts of medial data, etc., etc. this equates to MS' Ph. D.'s developing this stuff ... it gets to the programmers eventually but each discovery at the research level doesn't not appreciatively or immediately or directly affect the Programmer (or GP's) day to day business routine. So, I still don't think this scenario is way out of line ... assuming you have a GP in mind.

I'm simply excited about the prospect of learning a control language whose structure is simple and soundly based ... C# ... that is used to access all of the core objects I need to control the computer and the data it stores (.NET Framework). Factoring out the functionality of language specific functions into a commonly controlled nest of objects holds great engineering appeal to me ... maybe I'm totally off my rocker but I don't believe so. It simply feels like a natural progression of the software industry.

IF MS works it correctly, they can use that nest of objects to shield developers from the changes that take place at the implementation level of the machine. Whether they choose to do so is another matter. Let's hope so ... the opportunity is there and OO principals demand it to a degree.

I feel that this .NET thing is here to stay obviously ... I've waited, cautiously long enough and listened long enough to the respected leaders of my old community (VFP) to determine that the concept is sound. I'm treating .NET (now) how I treated FP when I started my programming career. .NET (now) is a 1.0 in my opinion that has the probability of being THE development environment in the coming years ... by the time it hits the equivalent of a VFP 5.0 level of product maturity (however many years from now that may take) I plan to know it inside and out ... and participate in the profit taking.

More importantly I plan to document my learning step by step on my website http://www.savvysolutions.com (everything I had to do to achieve the certifications of MCDBA and MCSN.NET) so that the people who follow after me can have a free place to go to see what someone else had to do to master (if one can ever say that confidently) the .NET Framework. If I can help just one person become certified in this new technology with this endeavor then I believe I've done a service to the community.

Have you ever seen the movie Pay It Forward? That's the approach I'm taking with my transition to .NET. I can't pay back the people that helped me make up my mind to make that transition (Griver, Eggar, McNeish, Gero, et. al.) but I can pay it forward to those who will follow in my footsteps and try to make their path easier than mine ... that is what the VFP community is all about ... the greatest service we can do to the .NET community is bring that sentiment along with us.

Respectfully,

CTBlankenship