>Victor,
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>>...I like C# better because the syntax (to me anyway) seems closer to VFP than VB.NET does.
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>That's interesting. I think it's just the opposite.
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>>The fear of the unknown? I know what's happening here, I just don't know when. My only fear is that a client will want something written that I know I could spit out with VFP in a couple of days but it'll take me a whole week to do it in C# because it doesn't have a data engine like VFP & my client will demand that I write it in something that MS currenlty markets. Hey no real problem for me - I'll make more $, but I'll feel like I'm wasting time.
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>As for development time, a big part of the story may just be that most of us have reams of reusable code and maybe a framework or three to depend on in whipping together apps with VFP (plus the in-depth knowledge from years of working in the language).
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>Doing the same things in .NET can take lots more code, or maybe not. Once you have some chuncks of reusable code and a framework or three in .NET that you are familiar with, and a bit of experience in working with them, it might not be such a big difference. This is especially true if you have been designing VFP apps with a logically-tiered architecture, perhaps using business objects.

I couldn't agree with you more. Having a well orgranized pile of more than a decade's worth of reusable code here and a couple of frameworks makes things go quickly - but again...without the built in data-engine my gut tells me it'll still take longer to write apps. For example, pick yourself a VB.NET guru, and have a race to see who can write a quick little rolodex screen first.

>I have not yet built a major client application with .NET, but in the small projects for internal use that I have done so far, I have spent hours figuring out how to do some very simple things. But, once that knowledge has been acquired, reusing the same code or principles is a piece of cake.

Agreed.

>Also, I got my hands on a copy of Kevin McNeish's Mere Mortals for .NET and worked through the Winform and Webform tutorial examples in both VB.NET and C#, which resulted in a set of business object classes and user interfaces that worked well -- all in a matter of probably 8 or 10 hours of slow, steady "connect-the-dots" tutorial. After that experience, I have no doubt that I could be quickly productive in building on that foundation, since so much of the hard stuff is already done and wired up in the MM subclasses of the .NET classes.

Bought the book when it came out, already went out to California and took Kevin's C#/MM training class. For anyone thinking about either - I highly recomend both.

>Don't get me wrong. I'm not a traitor to VFP just because I believe I can be productive in .NET. I'm trying to make a point that our lives and livelihoods are not being held hostage to someone else's decisions -- unless we allow them to be.

Always true. I got my 1st programming job in 1981 at the ripe old age of 14. Needless to say I've learned a LOT of languages and a LOT of operating systems over the past 25+ years - nothing different happening here and never will be either - you always have to learn another.

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>Primarily, I am a software developer and consultant. My skills in those categories range from requirements analysis to database design to evaluation of architecture choices to web designer to generic code-slinger to technical writer to... to... to...
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>Secondarily, I am a VFP developer, a SQL Server developer, a web developer, and if need be, a .NET developer, a MySQL developer, an Apache/Linux developer, and so forth.
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>I personally hope there will be many more enhancements to VFP, including major version number releases in the future, but my future (even as a writer and editor) does not depend on it.