>I have a well worn CD of VFP 6 which has served me gallantly for 8 years. Eight YEARS! I develop small applications for my work, my church and myself and I enjoy the power and freedom - especially because I can develop 'under the radar' of those darn DBA's and WEB server guys.

Visual FoxPro is an amazing product. It the core of of data and biz tiers of our biomedical application that is use throughout the Vancouver Coastal Health region

>To get a similar environment using .NET would cost me 1000 Dollars up front just for starters - and .NET is harder to implement for a multi-user app - then I have to start buying licences for MSSQL or use JET/ACCESS as a back end - and where is my local database?

.NET isn't as expensive as you think:
- you can continue to use VFP tables as your data source or the free MSDE, or and Access MDB. .NET doesn't dictate that you use SQL Server
- if you are doing web development you can use the free Web Matrix IDE (http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/default.aspx?tabIndex=4&tabId=46)
- you can get a free copy of VB.NET from here. http://www.aspnetwebcasts.com/ They sent me mine and I gave it to my boss since I use C#
- VFP 8 costs 649.00US, but C# costs $109.00 (from shop.microsoft.com)

>That just wouldn't fly with .NET so I can't see how Microsoft can sell .NET to anyone but big companies who have the cash.

As per above, you can develop an application with a lower purchase price for developer tools with .NET and because of this it isn't just for big companies.

>FOXPRO and VFP have been on the way out since 1993 - It will still be on-the-way-out long after .NET has become .HISTORY

I see what you are saying, I grin when I think of all those people that have chased the latest Microsoft tool or archiecture change and have had to (or wanted to) write and rewrite apps over and over.

VB6 with SQL Server
VB6 with COM or DCOM to SQL Server
VB6 with MTS with COM, DCOM to SQL Server then throw in some MSMQ
VB.NET to SQL Server

For me with .NET, Winforms is an optional feature. I am starting to use it, but just to learn more about .NET. ASP.NET was what I needed to convert our VFP8 windows apps into a web application. The VFP8 database was mulit-user with DBFs on a file server and was (cough) mostly 3-tier. With about 2 weeks work I converted the biz tier to VFP COM components and the VFP database stayed the same. Then I and our contractor built the ASP.NET webforms that mimicked the VFP8 forms. This was the biggest job. For the reporting, I converted my report code classes into a small app that checks a table (a queue) for reports that need to be run and then the report are run and sent to PDF files using Acrobat and wwpdf. This took only a few weeks to do.

Point is that .NET provides some things that you can't or are hard to do with VFP and that VFP and .NET work together very well. Plus doing OOP based coding in C# vs VFP is very similiar. The hardest part is "I know how to do this in VFP, how do I do it in .NET"... but that comes with experience.

I'm a VFP Fan and a .NET fan. I like both. .NET isn't as expensive as you think.