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>Fair enough. But this doesnt detract from the ongoing development of VFP as serious dev tool.
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>Is VFP any less "serious" because MS does not market it? I ask this because many scoff at MS Marketing as fluff. Yet - and somewhat inconsistiently - some will argue that VFP is not taken seriously because it is not marketed.
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You are correct in that the power of VFP as a dev tool, its "seriousness", is not related to the degree of marketing MS put behind it. They are not of the same issue.

However, your last sentence above is not in the same context as your first sentence. The degree to which VFP is "taken seriously", which is a perception issue, by non-VFP MS staff and other players in the IT industry is, I believe, affected, to some extent, by the way MS choose to market (or not) the product.

No marketing, or much worse, ignorance, affects the perception. Perception is an opinion. Perception affects acceptablity of a tool amongst IT professionals and management. In this way marketing can affect the product.


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>This is probably true and, to some degree, probably a result of the efforts of KenL. But this in itself again does not detract from the very real ongoing developments of the VFP platform. I dont mind buying a MSDN subscription if I can get VFP and all the other dev tools and things. Its not a bad price and I believe I get some value for money.
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>It is absolutely true...
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>MSDN is a great value. If you are a professional windows software developer -there is no reason why you would not have this tool in your arsenal.
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>I would argue with your use of the word "platform" in conjunction with VFP. VFP is an app-dev tool - not a platform. And - any developments going on are modest in terms of cost. They are certainly not modest in terms of perceived value to VFP developers. Although, one could debate that given the sluggish upgrade stats that have been alluded to...

OK, I meant dev tool. Platform is something else. iro the cost of the upgrades - well I assume that they will bear some correlation to the market size of the product. But its better than no development at all. iro upgrade stats - I dont know what they are but if your statement is true it does not directly infer anything about VFP per se without more information. There are too many unknowns to draw conclusions without more information.