Bob,

I think there is a great difference between programming in vacume and not reading books, magazines, not attenteding conferences. I do read the UT magazine, I do subscribe to other DBMS magazines, I do have a PUTM, I subscribe to MSDN - professional.

That beegin said, I do have my sources to learn new VFP features.

The VFP books I've seen proved little to no value to me. Again it is NOT about the costs. I'd be happy to spend over $100 if it indeed proves value to me.

>This comment makes me think of the line, "You don't know what you don't know."

I've read several issues of advisor/foxtalk (from colleages) and I've read enough to come to this conclusion. On the advisor site I've read some free topics. So I object against the standpoint that I don't know. Of course I don't know all articles because I simply did not read them.

From what I read and know of these magazines and books, there is not much "technical info" to be found which is not available on other sources as well.

>What if you didn't participate in this forum. Have you learned nothing from anyones posts here? Have you not even got an idea or inspiration from a post here? Have you not downloaded any files from here?

Sure, I've learned a lot on this forum over time. This is exactly the reason for subscribing. Especially bugtracking and finding specific technical issues is very valuable to me.

>You may be the exception from the rule, but my opinion (yes opinion) is that if you program in a vacume, with only system manuals, no books, no magazines, no user groups, no conferences, that YES, you are missing valuable information.

Again, I do participate here on the UT, I do look at the WIKI when needing some background info, I do have a MSDN subscription to search for issues, tricks and background info.

>Now, I'm not saying you can't be a good programer. You probably could come up with most if not all that has been presented in those outside sources youself.

>But, first, I doubt it,

First you say, "You probably could come up with most..." and now you say, you doubt it. What do you mean ?

>and second you are not leveraging the power of others work.

Or the other way arround? Look I deliver what the client needs. If they need something I don't know from the top of my head, I can search for that on the UT, MSDN, WIKI or Google. If I don't find the answer I post a message here on the UT. How big are the changes I end up no getting an aswer while the answer is written in some book ? IMO, that chance is about zero.

I do work different than most developer, yes. I don't take anything for granted. That is why I discussed the dreaded DELETED() tag about 5 years ago that lead to a total different viewpoint on this issue. That is the reason why I wrote TAXRI to replace the terrible RI code generated from MS solution. That is why I wrote Fox6command, to integrate command window functionality into every VFP application. That's why I've requested a fair nuber of enhancements in VFP database engine. That is why I object against the general applied naming conventions in VFP. I've got a bunch of other tools in house as well, I don't publish up here but certainly are interesting for a wide group of VFP developers. I have extremely high standards in certain area's. I don't mind spending days to accomplish a certain feature like finding out how to make a progressbar for downloading files from the internet. I've spend days in diving into MSDN, WWWC to find the solution I need. I don't care about the time I need for that, because every minute/hour I learn new things from these resources not neccesarely relating to the thing I'm looking for.

I'm not a contracter, I'm designing and selling commercial applications. You need to have high standards or else you won't sell.

Also be aware that people who work totally isolated are more capable of producing totally new concepts than those of which minds might have been poisoned with what other people write. I'm not saying that for myself, because I don't live in total isolation, but I'm certainly willing to investigate total new viewpoints.

Walter,