Greetings,

I think one also has to look beyond just the VFP is dead argument. The truth is that fat client development is down across the board and is hurting not just VFP. Powerbuilder was the fat client of choice 5-6 years ago and now you don't hear much about it at all.

You can also expect that VFP 5 and VFP 6 had much higher numbers because it was bundled with Visual Studio.

To me the biggest question is what about the big companies like AccPac that depend on VFP for tens of thousands of critical accounting systems? Until these huge install numbers start dropping I don't see less VFP work. Particularly since many VFP programmers have jumped ship.

If anything I would say the number of VFP programmers available has dropped considerably compared to how many companies have been able to get off VFP and onto something else. It's kind of like the developers have bailed on VFP before the companies even realized there was any concern.

I know for me personally that VFP has gotten me in many doors because there just are not that many people that know it compared to how many businesses seem to have applications running it. In my area there are 3-4 great VFP programmers but probably 50-100 expert VB programmers. Yet if you look at the accounting systems in the area most are running AccPac, Account Mate or IAS based on VFP. Few run VB source code accounting packages.

So at least in my area you have VB programmers fighting each other for non-mission critical projects that often get stopped as quickly as they are started. I'm personally not excited about the long term prospects of working in a company doing sideline VB projects when their mission critical application is Quickbooks.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd rather be developing mission critical applictions in 'dying VFP' than ancilary applications in the highly competitive .NET market. As long as you are developing mission critical applications I really don't think it matters what tool you use. Plus with less VFP developers available you become even more valuable to the company than a mission critical application in VB. A VFP programmer can confidently walk into the CEO's office and say you'll have a hard time finding a replacement for me. Not something a .NET programmer can do.

The lack of competition among VFP programmers is a big upside. So rather than crying about some of the VFP guru's leaving; see it as an opportunty because they are certainly leaving plenty of mission critical apps in their wake that will need attention down the road.

Greg


>>>so at one time they were an indicator? It is always an indicator. Sounds like you are 'context dropping' here. Interesting admission on your part though. Along with the 'VFP market is shrinking' admission. Of course then we can get into the 'the whole IT market is shrinking' stuff. and is the VFP market shrinking at the same rate as the rest of the IT market...LOL.
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>>You are the one that brought them into the conversation as an indicator. Not me. I am just refuting your implied claim that they are an indicator of VFP8 sales.
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>>>I wonder what has been done to improve Stonefield, Web Connection, and Voodoo in the last two years? Or are the principles of these companies allowing their actions to speak louder then their words ever could? Are the principles spending part of their time serving a different market? I think they are.
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>>Stonefield -- work moved to developing a VFP Query/Report tool because of demand.
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>>Web Connect and VooDoo -- I would suspect .Net
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>>>With IT spending down relative to the dot com bubble years and MS's refusal to market VFP outside the Foxpro community I conclude that VFP 8 is not selling as well as VFP 5 and 6. It provides a simple and direct explanation for the other events I've discuss previously in this thread.
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>>MS never marketed FP or VFP outside the community for any version, so how is that relevent to your conclusions about VFP8 versus 5 or 6?
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>Based upon Whil Hentzens's comments :
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>"I can look up your name and tell you what purchases you've made, how many times you've been to our website, if you've written to me about FoxTalk in 1999, what conferences you've been to, if you were an officer in a user group in 1994, or if you wrote for the third issue of the Cobb Fox User Journal. It's far from perfect, but it's a bigger, more complete repository of data than anyone else has. And as a result, I have hard numbers about the decline of the Fox market since the late 90s. "
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>I'd say sales of VFP 8 are lower than VFP 5 and 6.
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>:)