Charles, I just wanted to say that I think your post here is a pretty fair and level headed one. As a consultant free to choose his tools VFP provides an excellent RAD environment with awesome power applicable to a wide range of potential applications. And learning new tools is advisable in any field of endeavour. Fully agree.

In respect of whether people in this forum have fear or not I think is a more difficult conclusion to draw. Personally I feel that the vocal minority in this forum are more just tired of the "VFP is dead / dying / ailing / declining" story rather than fearful of having to learn new tools.

I think the participation in and contributions to this forum speaks volumes about the desire of UT members and VFP developers to learn and adapt.


>I'm not "jumping ship". I couldn't make a living with .NET right now - not even sure I'd want to - and have no reason to leave Fox. I bill 1500 hours a year and no one has ever told me what tool to use to solve their problems. I'm a consultant. I'm not out looking for a programmer job.
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>It simply comes down to this: if you want to write great apps to solve a wide variety of business problems and have clients who are happy, there is no reason to do anything other than Foxpro unless you anticipate that at some point in the future you will need another tool or two in addition to fox and in that case there is nothing crazy about learning new stuff now.
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>But if you want to get a JOB (not a course I personally find appealing, but obviously the case for a lot of folks) you will find more JOBS with .NET skills. That's an empirical fact. The fear in the community is very real and all the denial in the world won't change that.
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>I am not advocating anyone do anything (other than send me money). I am just observing there are people genuinely cranky about the idea they have to learn something new again. My Toffler observation was that that is not a particularly heplful mindset for this profession. Things change, live with it.
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>I don't even speculate on the "motivation" of others. I see a lot of messages drenched in denial, and that says to me fear. Personally I think Duffy's MVP message was inappropriate and inaccurate. But the message that the most knowledgeable in our community (those who were probably making more money with fox than the average developer) are investing a LOT of effort right now into expanding their skills is one that should reach the developer who is not perhaps as active in the community as those of use who are here all the time. (even if those of us who are here all the time get bloody sick of the message and the counter-message < s >)
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>That message is coming from people who shared very generously of their Foxpro knowledge and now they are sharing perceptions of the marketplace and the viability of new technologies.
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>In 1995 when Mike Beane said on CIS that he was learning C++ to make it easier to get a job a lot of people kind of laughed at him or just shook their heads, like he had said he was giving away all his possessions and entering an ashram. Now he would be burned as a heretic < g > We are in a very different climate.
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>The messages bashing Paddock, Duffy, McNeish and others as some kind of hucksters who are just pushing a point of view to promote products are just silly and reflect a real ignorance of the people and the issues involved.
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>What would be REALLY unfortunate - and dishonest - is if all the Fox gurus who were learning .NET were doing so in secret so they could milk whatever they could from Fox people without letting them know they were personally moving gradually in other directions.
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