I find myself in a situation where I am having to evaluate my future as an independent developer, what direction I should take and what development tool(s) to invest my time learing.

Much as I 'love' VFP (as much as anyone can love a programming language!), I cannot get away from the fact that the VFP market is shrinking in the UK. I have recently contacted many companies and have found that whereas 5-10 years ago VFP was their 1st choice for database development, many have moved on to SQL Server, .NET, VB, etc.. Those that still use VFP are either maintaining legacy applications only, or cannot see a future when they will be in a position to sub-contract work, even to experienced developers like myself. Judging by the email-feeds I get daily from various agencies, contract work has all but dried-up.

I would prefer to continue being an independent developer, and be in charge of my own destiny, working-day, projects, etc.. There are a few full-time vacancies around, but most of it is centred around the large cities (well outside commuting distance), and most potential employers will not even look at someone who cannot spend at least 4 days a week in the office (they think because they can see you, you must be working hard, right? :-( ).

So the options as I see them are...
a) Move to where the work is, which means uprooting the family from the beautiful south-west of England, and none of us want to move at present.
b) Move away from VFP. If I had many clients who didn't care what 'engine' I was using to drive their websites, I would stick with VFP. I hate the thought of moving away from VFP, and I want to stay with it for as long as possible, but I also want to be employable for a few more years. I cannot keep 'backing a dying horse' for ever. I am only 43, so any thought of retirement is a long way off!

So, what direction do I chose?

I have had a brief look at .NET, but when one is used to the relative simplicity of VFP code, much of what I have seen is a 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' situation, especially when it comes to data access. And as for building a desktop application... I didn't realise how spoilt we have been for years with VFP until I saw some VB or .NET examples! As I say, these are only my first impressions, and may be unfair at this stage.

My 'favourite' aspect of VFP development for the past few years has been web-applications. I am familiar with using Foxweb, and the ASP techniques of using code between <% %> tags, so in this respect ASP.NET may be the route to take, but what is the best 'investment' language to use with it? C#, VB or JScript? I also like the idea of using PHP or PYTHON with MySQL for web-development, but then that would rule me out of the networked desktop-application market (unless the client goes for an intranet solution).

I know there's no such thing as a 'guaranteed moneymaker' language in the software world, but I need to choose a path which will use the skills I have (14 yrs FoxPro and VFP, 3 yrs web-apps, 2 yrs SQL server, etc.), while at the same time maximising my chances of getting new clients, and keeping my interest in this business.

Over to you for comments. I would be especially interested to hear what other Fox-folk have done to keep their skills in demand, how successful they have been, pitfalls, etc.

Happy new-year to all on the UT.

Regards,

Alan Harris-Reid
BaseLine Data Services (UK)