Well, personally, I am more involved in the Cisco Networking Academy right now, meaning that it is a higher priority to finally get my CCNA certification, and to do additional reading about networks, than to learn more programming.

However, I have been looking at some job offerings in the programming area, and quite often, I find myself in a situation where the skills I have are not adequate, even in the case of jobs posted in VFP forums. They often want .NET as additional skills, so based on the job market, that seems a good way to go. Personally, even if I continue to use Visual FoxPro, I see a need to learn new (for me) technologies, like C/S and Web development. You already seem to have a good start there; at least you mentioned Web development.

As to .NET being more work than VFP; let's assume this is so - my judgement is as "unfair" as yours, not having much experience. But if a company wants to hire a programmer that knows .NET, there is not much you can do about that decision, so you might just as well learn languages that are popular, IMO.

This isn't something I have done so far, but it does seem convenient to dedicate some time to learning .NET. You can still use VFP if you have the choice (unless you eventually figure that .NET works better, at least for certain types of programming).

Greetings,

Hilmar Zonneveld.

>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).
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>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.
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>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)