>>>We "complained" for years about the FP and VFP report writer never being improved. We were even told " you have been asking for years but nothing has been done... take a hint" then lo and behold.......
>>
>>There is no parallel betwen these two. What was said years ago around the time VFP 6.0 was released was "If you haven't seen an area of the product updated in several versions, it is not likely that it will be in the future.".
>
>For what it's worth, the other Ken's quote is accurate. This ("take a hint" in ref to Report Writer enhancements) was stated by Robert Green at the Advisor Devcon in Orlando back in 1998. That said, I agree with you that in this case the public complaining is unproductive and probably does turn some people away.

I think what is sad about this thread is
(1) how quickly people get peeved at someone who is trying to support the development tool that we all love. adding him to their 'twit' list, etc. It's ok to disagree with him or his message, but geez cut the guy a little slack!
(2) that we're told not to complain or voice our opinions. Oh, wait, we're not told "not to complain" just that if we do it's counter productive and won't do anything
(3) that viewing #2 shows that our primary person within MS has given up the fight for VFPs place in the world. Resistence is futile, you will be assimilated into .NET sometime or another. You can feel the IL entering your subconcious.

It is so hard, so freaking frustrating to have to bite the bullet and prepare to dump the product I love. But, as any rational business person should do, I can't help but look out toward the future and see if within MS there is absolutely no momentum to try to grow VFP as a product, it is being left to die on the vine. Not this year, not next, heck it's still an awesome product, but the writing is on the wall. It currently takes me probably 10 times as long to write the DB code in VB/C#.net as it does VFP, but I've gotta keep working at it to develop my skills.

I write software for retailers... and in our world, we know the most dangerous customer is not the one who complains - it's the one who quietly just goes elsewhere. I worry that that is the future of many current VFP developers.