Hi, Jim.

I see that we both use very different glasses. 8-)

>>What critical bugs are still in VFP 8 that justify another Service Pack from your point of view?
>
>Now there's the rub, so to speak... at one time the deemed "criticality" of a bug had no relationship to issuing of a service pak. Things like numbers of bugs fixed since last, support for new OS features and other factors all played a role in determining if/when a service pak would be issued. Sure, a critical issue might speed it up, but that's not the point.Indeed it seems that mainly VFP suffers from having criticality as the ONLY (repeat: ONLY) determinant issue.
>So, to answer your question... for me the improper handling of collection iterations is a bad remaining one, having by now caused not only aggravation widely but also workarounds galore now in place. I've seen numerous reports here of grid-related anomolies that followed VFP8. Not only is this bad for heavy grid users, but it also serves to reinforce the option that some of us have adopted that grids seem a tad too risky/finnicky for regular use. I'm sure, in fact, that there are many GOOD reasons for there to have been a servicer pak since SP1.

I found the collection grid for myself, but didn't took me too long to understand it was not working properly, and the workaround is quite straigtforward: using indexes for looping into. I don't like it, but this is not so terrible, I think (I'm a heavy collection user, indeed).

I'm also a heavy grid user, and I never found any *terrible* issue that stop making me use the VFP grid. Having used a number of different grids in other environments, or OCXs, I still love VFP one. It is fast, flexible, nicely integrated with cursors... I surely have a LONG list of wishes, but... *critical* bugs? Not a single one. Again, I'm a heavy grid user. This is one of the main controls I use in Win32 interfaces, from everything from lookup to editing (yes).

Yes, there ARE some issues. But nothing that blows my applications away.


>>>2) It is also a VERY sore point that long-reported bugs remain as bugs even to this date - another issue raised and ignored in your reply. In fact the real sore point is that all bugs go into the black hole called Microsoft. Fortunately, in a few cases, we now get acknowledgement that a bug has been SUBMITTED. While that represents a bit of progress, the fact that it's status is thereafter LOST and UNKNOWN is troublesome.
>>
>>Yes, this is something that can always be improved. I would ask here also what are the critical bugs whose tracking is lost.
>
>The fact of the matter is, we can NEVER KNOW. And, again, what's "critical" to me can be nothing of consequence to you... depending on if you hit the situation or not.
>I shudder to think of the hours lost by souls who manifest the same bug in their own code as countless others have already AND SIMILARLY SPENT THE SAME HOURS SOLVING THEIRS.
>ANY bug that causes loss of time because it is not readily available in a list of known bugs is a tragedy that NEED NOT BE! But it is unavoidable with all of the 'help' Microsoft offers in this instance. How many new bug reports for VFP8 have you found in MSDN... compared to the number reported just here for example????

Hmmm... Maybe you're are so focused on VFP, that you don't have the chance to compare. With a little initiative, I *always* find plenty of documentation and workarounds for VFP bugs or problems. Try the same on the Java or .NET arena, and you'll know what's "hell" means... Again, that doesn't mean everything is good. I'm just pointing that VFP still seems much better for me in this respect than other Microsoft and non-Microsoft products.


>>>A MSDN subscription is VERY pricey, especially in less rich countries.
>>
>>This is true if you just need VFP. In that case, MSDN would be an overkill. If you need a couple more products, a subscription can be cheaper than getting them separatedly. Being heavy users of many products, it has always being a great deal for us. Indeed, I have both MSDN and Technet.
>
>Well it's pricey even so!!! For me it is over $3,000CDN for MSDN Universal Upgrade. I was fortunate enough to get one last year for $899.USD on eBay. It has expired now and I may look there again once MS has delivered some more interesting software, next year. At $899. it was a reasonable deal, but $3,000+ is simply too much. And, given the extremely POOR quality of the Office 2003 suite included in my subscription I just might have been better off without that version of Office!

Well, Jim. Maybe you don't need an Universal Subscription. For me it is a good deal because we use and support a LOT of products at my company (ISA Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, BizTalk, Office, etc, etc). If you only need dev tools, you may try the Professional subscription. Even more, if you just need a couple products, maybe it is cheaper to purchase separated products.

Again, I'm quite happy with Office 2003. I definitively love Outlook 2003. There is a bunch of things I would improve, but I think it is much better than the older versions. Not so, but I like many features in Word, Excel and Powerpoint also.

>I guess what it comes down to is the consistent and ever-growing situation (with the exception of computer hardware) of paying more and getting less. I cannot tell you how much it bothers me to see ever widening acceptance of this, even to the point of making excuses for the vendors who practise such.

Strangely, I see it all the way around. I think that we are paying less (prices tend to get down, not up), and get more and more. Indeed, what I see as a problem in Office 2003, for example, is that it is TOO big. It has so many features that many users are disturbed. I guess they should ship a smaller edition or add some "simple" mode for plain vanilla users. Some features trying to reduce noise like the "conditional" menus and such didn't worked well from my standpoint.

Best regards,