Everything Old is New Again (Newsletter: Dan Covill)

I found this in the San Diego VFP User Group's newsletter, dated April 2007. I thought it was well written:

   Reading the comments following YAG's announcement (half of which,
  interestingly enough, were in Spanish) brought Chicken Little to
  mind.  It was either, "Oh, my God!  We're all going to be out of
  work!" or, "I'm leaving Microsoft and rewriting all my applications
  in PYTHON/JAVA for Linux/OS-X".

  Come on, folks!  While this isn't exactly _good_ news, it's not
  like we haven't seen it coming for about ten years now.  And anyone
  who's "lost faith in Microsoft" over this has been asleep for a
  long, long time.

  Yes, we have a problem in future direction.  It's doubtful that we
  will be programming in VFP in the year 2025.  (Okay, I myself won't
  be programming in _anything_ by then, but you know what I mean.
  )  But there's no need to rush out and buy a copy of Python,
  either (actually, it's free).  Here's how I see it:

  1. This is not a surprise.  There is absolutely nothing in the
  announcement we haven't known about for six months to a year.

  2. VFP (with its unique data structure) is the ideal platform for
  building custom apps for small/medium businesses.  Microsoft not
  only isn't into small business, they don't know anything about it,
  which is why they never pushed VFP and are only too happy to end
  it.  But in spite of MS marketing efforts, there is a huge
  installed base of dBASE/FoxPro/VFP apps out there, all running and
  needing occasional repair or upgrade.  And most of the owners are
  NOT interested in paying you what it would cost to rewrite their
  apps in .NET.  It's taken 20 years to build all those apps, and
  they won't vanish overnight.  I'd guess you'll be able to find VFP
  work for another ten years at least, even if FoxPro finally stays
  dead.

  3. I think it's entirely possible that, with Microsoft having left
  the field, more alternatives may appear.  dBASE is still around,
  for example - their website talks about running under VISTA.  Ed
  Leafe and Paul McNett are still working on DABO (which is a VFP
  clone written in Python).

  4. You can't just translate a good VFP app to some other language,
  because the magic of VFP isn't in the syntax (not that different
  from BASIC, really), but in the conceptual framework.  There IS no
  other language that treats database fields as linguistic
  primitives, allowing us to write code that is truly data-centric.
  So you have to re-design the app with a new set of concepts, and
  then write it in the new language.  That won't be cheap.

  In January 2006 I ran an item reporting that Visual FoxPro was
  ranked 20th in the worldwide index of programming languages put out
  by TIOBE.com.  Well, guess what?  As of today, VFP has fallen all
  the way to 22nd!  It's selling like hotcakes in China and India.

  OK, enough.  Like Pogo Possum, I advocate creative inaction.  Don't
  panic.  Keep on taking good care of your employer/client's VFP
  systems.  You've literally got years before you HAVE to do
  anything, give it some time to see what pops up.  Remember, the
  first ones to jump ship have the farthest to swim.