John,

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>I'm hard-pressed to recall any feature we've shot down for budgetary reasons.
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>Are you kidding???? This is one of main reason why things do not get done. For example, COM Debugging. Technically, it can be done. Would it come at the expense of other things - and thus put the product in the red? That is likely the reason why that feature never made it into the product.

OK, silly me, I'm here and in all of the enhancement meetings and somehow missed this one. COM debugging has never been seriously discussed AFAIK in my time here.

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>Almost always, it's one of two issues that cause a feature to be liked but not implemented: Research indicates that it may destabilize or change legacy behavior or it's something that can be easily done now through other means.
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>COM Debugging does not fit into either of those two categories. It is somewhat of a moot point now - but 4-5 years ago when the feature was added -it was at that point in time the feature should have been added.

I wasn't here 4-5 years ago and can't address this knowledgeably.

>And not to put too fine a point on it - there is a vested interest in not making the product TOO attractive to the existing user base. After all, if the user base got everything it wanted - there would be less incentive to move on.

I disagree. We are here, primarily, to promote VFP and our VFP developer base. Sure, if you're working on a project that VFP is not the best choice for, we'd like you to choose another MS tool, such as .Net. But, again, not once have I been in a discussion where something was not considered because it'd make VFP too attractive. That's just plain silly.

>Be extremely careful about articulating reasons why some features get in and other don't. At the very least, those reasons have to pass the smell test.

No, John, you should be more circumspect before trying to sow FUD into a situation you have no first-hand knowledge of. Why do I have to be careful posting the honest truth? Frankly, I don't care what you smell from 4,000 miles away. I can't figure what you're saying nor why you're saying it but I can't credit it for being "in the know" nor logical.

You serve no one but your own apparently misguided ego when you post stuff like this.