Terry,

>Martin wrote a "programmers" article. My hunch is that Martin is still delivering (or at least supporting) vfp applications.

You're probably right. As for FoxTalk, I think everyone who has written a major article for FoxTalk since I became editor about a year ago is actively delivering or supporting VFP applications (among other things). This includes Doug Hennig, Andy Kramek, Marcia Akins, Cathy Pountney, Randy Pearson, Lauren Clarke, Walter Nicholls, Rick Borup, Dragan Nedeljkovich, Rick Hodder, Anatoliy Mogylevets, Pradip Acharya, and more in upcoming issues.

The current March issue (available online now) features a case study by Dave Bernard, showing how he uses VFP MTDLLs in conjunction with ASP, SQL Server and Microsoft English Query to solve an unusual development scenario. I think there are plenty of great articles available in several places written by people who actually are doing VFP development.

>...If you, the silver bearded acedemics of our niched profession, don't help those that deliver those "85% grid gui's" learn a bit more about OOP development and PRG solutions, then those poor "types" will never be able to migrate to an environment like .NOT.

ROFL! I may be silver-bearded, but I don't consider myself an academic. However, I think the material we are publishing has lots of great tidbits of advice, teaching, and sample code. Just walking through the sample code downloads provided with every article can teach you tons about good development practices.

>If they're doing VFP - better they learn the desciplines of OOP with a platform they somewhat understand.

I agree that leaning OOP principles is a good thing and will serve you well in the future, no matter what language you are working with.

>I don't write articles . I do write case studies, proposals, user guides and I write a lot of code (and I still have a long way to go). But I don't get hired because of what I write - I get hired because I will read (and read) technical documents and specifications (not software stuff - but business rules stuff) and can suckup to the "master level" geeks for technical guidance (I am eternally grateful for those more disciplined than I that put up with my muck and help me sort my issues:). So I may be in a completely different market than most of us.

A developer who actually reads technical documents and specs? You may very well be in the minority, based on some projects that I have seen. :-) Good analysis skills, like good OOP skills, will serve you well in the future.

>But, if Baird's assertion is correct (that 85% of VFP is grids in a page frame), then its up to you guys to move them to a more "classic" development approach - because all you are doing - when you pitch and sell VFP to.NOT conversions - is costing them [their] jobs.

Who do you mean when you lump me in with "you guys" and say that I am pitching and selling VFP to.NOT conversions? I think you have an annoying habit of painting too many people with a broad brush of negative characterization.

>DOT-NOT is a discipline on it's own and the promise of easy and understandable conversion to those in the 85 percentile group is a sham. Help them be better programmers - don't help yourselves to their jobs.

FWIW, I don't think ANY of the articles in FoxTalk in the past year have included much about grids, other than maybe a grid in some of the sample forms to illustrate something else. Have you read FoxTalk lately?

>The filetostr of an html page does not transfer the href images but it does recognize a style-sheet. How come?

If you mean that you think an external style sheet file is being somehow transferred along with the HTML, I think you are mistaken. A reference to an external style sheet file, just as references to image files, will be included in the HTML, but not the file itself, which will have to be transferred at some point to your client computer, or if you are using a full URL to a remote style sheet file, will be automatically transferred to your browser cache when you load the page.

That being said, once the external style sheet file exists in your browser cache, it will become active if referred to again in another web page. You must already have it on your local computer (in the cache).

Of course, if you have inline styles, they ARE part of the HTML and do transfer completely with your FILETOSTR example.