>More than 20 years after the invention of the IBM PC (and the Apple Macintosh, for that matter), why is it still so difficult to build robust applications?
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>MS would have developers migrate to .Net. On top of learning a new language (for pretty much everyone except C++ programmers), learning a large class "framework" seems to be required. It looks far from "easy" and is likely to leave a lot of developers behind. Superficially it looks like Kevin McNeish has an interesting niche with his "Mere Mortals for .Net" framework; I don't know how much it helps out learning the .Net classes. And, Mono aside (I'm not sure how "compatible" a non-MS runtime can ever be), .Net is Windows-only.
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>Not having used Java, my impression is it's no piece of cake either and the available tools are not as "developer-friendly" as typical MS offerings (from the few comparative reviews I've read).
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>LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl [or PHP or Python]) seems increasingly popular but my impression is it's mostly for Web based apps, may not be too suitable for desktop apps. Technology is relatively new and tools not as advanced as MS or Java.
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>I like that VFP has multiple 3rd party frameworks available. Their judicious use can really boost productivity. But, for those cases where technology matters, it's not mainstream.
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>This industry has had a large cadre of brilliant people working in it for a long time. Why does it seem that development is getting more complex rather than easier?

Hi Al,

I find myself thinking about that question a lot. The amazing thing is that in 30 years, things haven't gotten easier. They haven't even gotten better! And it's not as though there was anything trivial or backward about those old systems, like Multics, my old favorite. Things were orderly and refined. You could build anything you could dream up.

Now we are thoroughly mired in excrement. The programming world is grinding to a standstill as layer upon layer of garbage is wadded into balls, thrust upon unsuspecting humanity by gigantic dung beetles. Who can possibly explain to a normal human being how much of this is all BS?

Even in the best of circumstances, even if vendors actually tried to be helpful, there's the inescapable problem of combinatorial complexity. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that this stuff even comes close to working. There are so many ways to go wrong at each level, and we build up level after level, still at the mercy of a single bug at any point in the chain. There is no guarantee that improvements in system architecture will really offset the ever increasing probability that a single thing might go wrong and bring the whole thing crashing down.

That brings me to VFP. A rock of stability in a sea of change and confusion. An occasional enhancement and fix would be nice, but there's no substitute for its proven power.

My 2 cents.

Mike