>>Though it may be unlikely, I should point out that MS's support for VFP (currently "up to 2010") is entirely up to MS - they could change that at any time - preferably extended, but it COULD be shortened, and we'd have no recourse.
>
>Sure but for many of us even if that were to happen it would not spell the end of VFP development. I would easily be able to continue to develop vertical market, shrink wrap, and web based solutions for some time thereafter. The development tool would still work and be capable of producing decent products. But anyway, in the IT world 6-7 years is a long time and a lot can happen.

I mostly agree but there are a couple more points:

- Some developers, and some end-users who are technically inclined get very nervous if a tool is not going to be supported by its sole-source vendor

- Technical advances can leave even a best-practices, state-of-the-art VFP app behind. For example, at this point it looks like even VFP9 will not run "natively" on the next MS OS, "Longhorn".
Re: Longhorn and VFP Thread #844544 Message #844566

So, conceptually, current-generation COM-based VFP apps could end up the way 16-bit FPW apps currently look under OSs like WXP or W2K - dated-looking and with clunky support "under the hood".

>>>One of the fairest advantages vs. disadvantages of VFP that I have read can be found at http://www.clearform.com/visual_foxpro.htm. It’s worth a read.
>>
>>I'd say it blows VFP's horn well, but hardly discusses alternatives with any depth.
>
>For a "one-pager" I think its reasonable without getting too involved. It touchs the main bases and clearly highlights several scenarios where SQL/Oracle would be the correct choice as opposed to DBF.

I was trying to point out that if a developer was in a "clean-sheet" position and could choose any technology for a new project, it's not a great discussion of VFP's drawbacks, and does practically nothing to discuss alternatives. The link bangs VFP's drum well but an objective evaluator would need other reviews of VFP plus those of other technologies to reach a truly informed opinion.

>>>The landscape is not clear and personally I wouldn’t want to forecast the IT world wrongly and then have to repeat the forecast ad nauseum hoping to eventually be right :)
>>
>>I think what drives a lot of these threads is angst over the community's love/hate relationship with Microsoft.
>>
>>VFP is written in C++. As a thought exercise, imagine that it had been written by an open-source community. We could fix bugs or extend the product as we saw fit. No individual or company could prevent that, ever - it couldn't "die". It might be ported to non-Windows environments (although a Java base might be easier or better for this). If it lost relevance, we would have only ourselves to blame.
>
>Fully agree.
>
>
>>But, all this is a classic moot point. My guess is the VFP code base is immense - maybe larger than any single open source effort, including the Linux kernel. It's desktop-oriented - and until recently, there's been basically zero market for open source on the desktop. There is no way a 4GL-5GL tool like this would have been built by an open source community (it hasn't, to the best of my knowledge). Unless a large company like MS, Borland, IBM etc. developed it, it simply wouldn't have happened. They put a huge amount of money and other resources into it up-front, and they have to get recompensed for that.
>>
>>So, we may not like the current situation with VFP, but we've got to understand it :-/
>
>Again I agree but I must be honest and say that all in all I am not actually unhappy with the VFP situation. MS continue to produce a decent product and I can continue to use it. It works for me and I can still spend time looking at other options.

I'm not too unhappy about it either but others could well disagree. The decisions MS has been able to make as a sole-source vendor have hurt other markets. For an English-speaker in the developed world, who runs on Windows, VFP is a bargain.

If you're on something other than Windows, *n?x support stopped in the DOS days, Mac support ended at VFP3. Incidentally, since VFP has been Win32 only since version 5, MS has had 4 production versions (soon to be 5) to base VFP forms on true Windows forms, support callbacks and in general eliminate the compatibility and interoperability problems we've faced for years. But, they haven't done so.

For some in the developing world, the price of a copy of VFP, plus a PC and a copy of Windows to run it on, is a sizeable fraction of a year's pay. This is a real dilemma for companies like MS and a significant force driving the use of open source products.

And then, very often if you're in the developing world (and often even if you're in the developed world!) the product isn't even in your language! I imagine in your case, it'd be easier to sell to government agencies if the product were localized to Afrikaans. Now, MS is trying to tell us they're doing the world a great favour by (very selectively) offering localization kits so volunteers can do their work for them! This is true even for large language markets like Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese! IMO this is skating very close to abuse of the VFP community.

So, if you're an English-speaking developed-world programmer working on Windows, you're golden. Otherwise, even if you're not abandoning VFP, VFP is abandoning you.