>What we really have here is that it's too EARLY for .NET but that is well hidden by all of the marketing $$$ spent on pushing it and converting developers to it (including phony 'community building').
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>MS wants and needs for people to convert to the thinking you've gone to in order for .NET to succeed.
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>I have no doubt that MS will succeed with .NET some day, because they just have too much money for it to do otherwise. But it is coming close to a real date for that to happen that is the sticky part here. My guess is that it is at least 3+ years away.
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>From the little I read about .NET it still has a long way to go before it is 'developer friendly' and anywhere near "RAD". It's nice, and helpful to me in the longer run, that so many developers are participating in the raising of this infant that it still at the suckling stage.
>When .NET reaches a maturity that makes it a 'productive employee' then I plan to investigate it further. Until then there is PLENTY of scope for VFP.
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>Being "in" on the latest and greatest used to be a high for me. But I've come to realize that business cannot simply 'turn on a dime' and now (as opposed to several years ago) has much of their key production systems in place and working nicely and any idea of CONVERSION is viewed with great skepticism.
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>Finally, the whole .NET idea was conceived during the .COM boom and it was while it was still gestating that the boom busted. So it was born at a time when its utility was no longer valid. MS has made a few changes of direction since .NET's birth but it has yet to really find the desired vocation for this baby. Once it finalizes that there is a chance that they will then make it the tool that developers can employ with eagerness and pride. Those who are "in" on it now surely will have a big lead, but the business world is a huge place and there will be plenty of room for everyone who adopts it, whenever they do.
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>Jim
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>By the way I think that one REAL possibility that may arrive sooner than .NET (matures) itself is that developers as known today will be totally out of the equation, the combination of Office and SQL Server and XML being the application delivery vehicle for the future. [that's no doubt one reason that MS stopped calling screens 'screens' and went to 'forms' instead... a first step toward Word forms in the true sense]

Well said, Jim. Especially that .COM part, it echoes what I've said a number of times here in the past year or two, that the *timing* was off for .NET to succeed quickly - it came along too late, after the crash had destroyed the market. A year or 2 earlier, and .NET would have been *much* easier to market. Basically that was just plain bad luck for MS, as how many of us saw the .COM crash coming? Raise your hand, please...

I still think .NET is "worth a look," and some "playing around with," and probably will eventually pick up some real steam - but I think your 3-year estimate is right about what I'd say, too. And that's largely why .NET is still "banned" officially at my agency, we're in a "wait-and-see" status, probably like many others. What we see, as you say, are lots of marketing $$, and some high-profile developers trying to lead a .NET trend.

But so many lower-profile developers are just not in that "go-go-go" mode of thinking, is what I see from the Average Joe/Jane developers. After .COM crash, we're mostly a lot more suspicious about "cutting edge" & "trendy" thinking, and as you said at the end - well, that's simply a very good point and I won't try to add anything, people can read it themselves.

Related, other possible problems posed recently are the rapid trend of outsourcing and open-sourcing, which between them may have an impact on .NET (can't be too specific on just what yet, but I'm thinking there may be some serious ill-effects to .NET's growth coming down the road, from these two factors).