>I think we are being too hard on Ken.
>
>We all know MS is betting the company on .NET being successful. We should focus our requests to Ken and the VFP team in essential improvements, such as the reporter and continued interoperability with new technologies and not vent our frustrations on them, who can do nothing about a lot of our frustrations.

I can agree that some persons here (and elsewhere) are giving him what I think is too hard of a time on issues that he cannot address easily (either he doesn't know yet, or can't say a lot of things). But I'm also guessing that even at the top within MS, there has been some uncertainty about direction of various products, especially following the .COM bust, and more recently the extraordinarily huge security emphasis - neither of these things were too predictable, and most likely caused a lot of turmoil within MS - so not just Ken, but others at MS too have had to adjust and re-adjust their plans.

I know from my own workplace that the recent heavy security issues caught us nearly by surprise. Where we had planned to do upgrades, new enterprise apps, etc., suddenly all that was shelved, and everyone has been pretty much solely focused on security matters (and will be for quite some time, it looks like). For example the funding for big enterprise project X was removed, and instead a fortress-like Vault was built to house servers (this is partly due to 9/11, not just software holes)

I also agree about focusing on what we want, as opposed to just constantly trying to "pump him" for information about the future - he'll tell us when he's ready, as he always has, AFAIK.

The topic I sat down to post about, though, is this: I've been too busy to follow the UT much until this week, but now reading a lot of posts, I see the same old thing (I'm a veteran UT member, so I can say that with a good perspective over time) - *all sorts of members* want *all kinds of different things*, there is little consensus here at all.

So no wonder if Ken may be a little bit thinking "what do the heck do these people really want?" and "I'm hearing all kinds of wishes and wants, these people are all over the map." How are he and others at MS supposed to deal with such a motley and widely variant group these days? It must be a PITA to try to sort out what the "community" wants *as a whole* with so many different requests, and in so many different directions. It's got to be a tough position to be in, for him and others that he works with.

So in that sense in particular, I agree with you. We *are* all over the map, way more than say, 5 or 8 years ago. Here are some basic categories I will make a stab at describing, roughly:

1) There's a group that wants vfp to be more-or-less as it always has been, just getting new features and beefing up old ones, and adding some compatibility to interact with other MS products, but not at the expense of losing features we already have.

2) Then there's another group that wants a vfp re-write, almost, and is willing to sacrifice *some* current features to interact with new-tech products.

3) The there's yet another group that *seems* to simply want to kill off vfp, and use only .NET and other coming products, and some of whom are declaring the Fox to be doomed, and that MS is sort of subtly trying to edge vfp out of existence, but without losing the smaller developering market to a competitor somehow (true or not, I have no idea). (To add, I think maybe they more-or-less tried that already with heavy VB/Access promotion some years ago, but it failed because VB/Access just didn't measure up. I don't see the VB/Access publicity that raged for a while any more, and it's no wonder, after trying to work with it to help someone a while ago with Access - it's laughable for "real" developers to use VB/Access as opposed to the Fox.) After that, the emphasis shifted to the Server DB market, potentially more profitable, and "real" developers can like it.

4) A group that is not quite sure what they want, or they want *everything* which just ain't gonna happen. I would say, make a choice: be a 1, 2, or 3.

Anyway, what are Ken and others ay MS to make of us all? It's got to be difficult to deal with such a widely variant group.

(BTW, you can place me in category 1, but with a couple of toes reaching into category 2, to see how the water is...)

The one other thing I will add, is that I think those deeply into category 3 should probably forget about the Fox entirely, toss out their vfp copies, and move on into the newer-tech waters rather than stick around here bashing the Fox. Not many do this, but there are a few. This I don't like, and I don't think this is the right place to do it (free speech or not, it's just not healthy for the environment here - go somwehere else and bash, please). Or if they remain, fine, but please try to refrain from too much fox-bashing or death-knolling. If they prefer .NET, fine, but perhaps they can just say that without casting negative stones at vfp at the same time. (thankyou)