>So you're saying that the other programmers were not as intelligent or skilled as Calvin? Maybe, maybe not.

That's a reasonable interpretation of what I said. Probably an accurate one if you change "intelligent and skilled" to read "skilled." Let's re-phrase it a bit. Would it be reasonable to interpret your comments as saying that the other programmers are more skilled than Calvin, but that he came up with a better solution because he had a better tool?

>So any programming challenge is not reliable since it's based on the skill of the programmer and not the language in any way?

I think "in any way" is a bit of a stretch. But in general, I'd agree with that statement.


>Like I said, I'll reserve the right to think foxpro had something to do with it.

That's certainly a reasonable point of view. But I think John's point about it being the programmer, not the tool, has a great deal of validity.

It's almost certainly a combination of the two which leads to the winning solution. You can't take either the programmer's skill, or the capabilities of the tool, out of the equation when determining what was the biggest factor in designing the winning solution. I tend towards giving the programmer the lion's share of the credit. I think you tend towards giving the tool the lion's share. You may well be right.

When one programmer, with equal skills in two tools, develops an application in one tool and then - with the experience from having built the first application - cannot improved upon it with the second tool.......... I'll conceed that proves the first tool to be better (SET HEDGE ON "if only for that application").