Hi, Steve,

Couple of points...

1) I used Clipper heavily years ago. An important piece of history was the release of Clipper 5.0 in 1990. It came out much later than advertised, which wouldn't have been bad had the release of 5.0 not been...well, BAD.

The VMM and 'code block' functionality caused frequent crashes, even on apps that could still safely fit within the 640k limit. Many Clipper user groups were furious about all the great new techniques from Rick Spence and other authors that couldn't be used, because most of the developers were forced to revert back to Summer '87.

Even worse, it took about 8 months for 5.01 to hit the streets. It fixed most of the issues, but during that period many went to C/Pascal and a dBase DLL library, some switched to Fox, etc. So IMO, the Clipper movement was SERIOUSLY damaged by a product that was months late, and took over half a year to fix.

I'm not saying that the entire Nantucket to CA situation would have turned out differently had the 5.0 debacle not occured. But clearly the product took a big enough black eye that others looked to different products. While version to version upgrades of VFP have had some issues, all of them together don't even come close to the Clipper 5.0 disaster.

2) Generally though, I agree with your observations regarding Fox and Microsoft. I think the number of downward trends regarding FoxPro exceed the upward trends. VFP is a great tool that can do many things. But .NET is also a great tool that can do more things than some realize (or want to realize).

MS has openly stated that .NET is their strategic development tool - and yet those who talk about the features of .NET and cite first-hand market examples reflecting this are the ones accused of spreading FUD.

I don't personally begrudge these accusations. It is topic with strong emotional overtones. In 1989, Dr. Dave demonstrated FoxPro 1 on one machine and dBase IV on another machine. I have never seen an individual have so much fun 'sticking it' to the competition. It was infectious and engergizing. Many people on here (myself included) wrote many VFP apps in the last 10-15 years that greatly helped out careers, our financial situations, etc. It's a product with a rich history and there's tremendous pride involved here.

It is difficult to acknowledge that changes are occuring and will continue to occur. But the fact remains that an increasing # of companies/clients will dictate the development tools.

Kevin