The key thing I take away from it is that MS can't successfully throw away existing technology(VB,VFP,ASP,etc.) and start from scratch with .NET. IOW, interop between old and new technologies is key and will continue to be key in the future. Also, although ASP.NET is the real improvement, look for MS to concentrate on desktop development with .NET in the future, where they're currently failing, since this is where the key is to locking developers in is.
Yes, developing web apps in VFP is a no-brainer to me because of all the great code, skill, and know-how currently with VFP. Interop between ASP.NET and VFP is also important - that's why I created ActiveVFP as a free and easy way to create web apps with VFP that can interop with ASP.NET...
>>Cecil,
>>this article is really thought provoking on MS's whole strategy for >developers, including vfp and .NET - check it out:
>>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
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>Yes, Claude, I read the entire article and you are right. It is very thought provoking. I wrote a long response to this man's article here on UT and then lost all of it before hitting the submit button. Darn!
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>Anyway, I'll write a shorter version now.
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>What I understand from Joel's article is that the world is changing very fast and even technology that MS wants us to embrace now, they will change within two more years and we will in effect have to start all over. Additionally, developers are departing en masse from desktop apps (Windows API) and going toward web apps, which does not require the use of MS tools to develop. Good news for Web Connection apps written with Visual FoxPro? VB developers are still working in huge hordes in the marketplace and are not converting immediately into .NET developers. The same with C and C++ developers.
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>I was talking recently with a fellow FoxPro developer about how so much is changing and how hard it is to keep up; he is discouraged because he doesn't know how all of this change will shake out. He is in his 60's and is used to using one tool for maybe 10 years then moving over to another one, but not how it is now with changes coming every two to three years. Can a family man (or woman) keep up, much less a single person?
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>I love the development tool, Visual FoxPro, but I am willing to learn one or two more tools in order to be employable, but then what? What if MS falls on their face with all of this .NET stuff? Where will MS be in the next 5 or 10 years? Can anyone sustain so much change?
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>I told my wife that I cannot learn anything in our home, because I know that she will bug me about everything, i.e., the kids, the house, whatever. Wasn't that nice of me? I guess I feel the pressure to learn something like C#, or VB.NET in order to keep up. But, what does all of this change do to our psyche? If you are a family person, how do so many changes affect you and your family, when you have to study hour upon hour to keep up?
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>Time to go to law school! Change careers? yes, some are already doing that. I know one excellent FoxPro developer who decided to change careers; he AND his wife are now truck drivers, driving cross country. He is in control of his own world to a larger degree than those of us trying to keep up with all of MS' changes in development tools. How many of the people at Microsoft actually write business apps with all of these development tools? I don't mean business apps that they sell through MS. Am I complaing? Probably. <g>
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>These are my thoughts.