>http://www.devcity.net/forums/topic.asp?tid=68646


Hi Bernard,

BTW, this thread should be moved to chatter.

I got curious by your message and went to check out the discussion in that vb forum.

Unfortunately the discussion degenerated into a religious war and none of the UTers who visited offered much in terms of value.

I think we should rid ourselves of our sentimental involvement with vfp before participating in this type of discussion and concentrate on what matters. What matters is that a colleague is in trouble and we have the ability to lend a hand. It's funny how in the UT we often see people from the US assisting people from countries that this one's at war with (or at least in a state of controled unfriendliness), yet, when someone from the vb world has a problem with vfp a cat-fight ensues.

George's problems (that's the guy's name) aren't whether vfp is better/faster/prettier than vb. He's having pretty much the same problems we ALL faced when we were exposed to vfp for the first time. That's what should have been addressed. The answers he got from vb developers were obviously confirmation of his own fears - why would that have to be different? I would have the same trouble having to go through a vb app or a java one, or even a clipper app that I wrote 10 years ago!

We keep hearing complaints about Microsoft's lack of marketing for vfp. This was a perfect opportunity to market it or at least let the world know that it's a great weapon in a developers arsenal, wouldn't you agree???? Yet, no one went in that direction.

We must learn to be confortable with the fact that a vb, java, rgp, or any programmer that uses another tool has no need and no interest whatsoever in learning vfp unless he sees a need for it. Likewise, if we have no pressing reason to learn another language, we wont. Simply, because we're comfortable with our tools and we don't have a need for it at the moment. If we want others to respect this fact, we must respect it as well when others do the same. Same applies to vfp developers who are interested in other technologies. Just because other vfp developers are showing (some more publicly than others) interest in other platforms doesn't mean we should bash them: they have their own [and very good] reasons for this, but I won't go into that as it's not relevant here. Suffice to say, every decision you make should be a business decision whether you like it or not. Either way, we all must live with the consequences of our decisions and the only thing we must try is to be as comfortable as humanly possible with them.

Now, go and have some fun!

Alex

Have fun!

Alex