Steve, your probably closer to YAG then I am. But why did he take his

knowledge and go to the dark side (VB) ? My guess was it was more then a $

only thing.

I've been doing ASP.NET for all of this year. At the same client I feel

that I have the rest of the year booked. I have done a component catalogue

<handling details that print in product catalogs for truck parts > and taken

them past the printed page to an Internet version as well.

Heck yeah, lots of learning and remembering how easy it was to do in VFP.

As a matter of fact this system was designed by Fox Holdings people, Jerry

Tovar, but my client was sold off and doesn't have access to their old

program(s) as the new Company. When this final piece gets approved it will

be on line and I'll post the URL.

Anyway, somebody has to start. I'm glad that I got my feet wet early on

instead of sitting on the sideline.

Stephen Russell

S.R. & Associates

Memphis TN 38115

901.246-0159

Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.

-----Original Message-----

From: profox-bounces@leafe.com [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com]On

Behalf Of Steven Black

Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 11:16 AM

To: Bill Anderson

Subject: Re: [NF] - Advisor DevCon observations (long)

Hi Bill,

>> At least one trade show company the purports to be big in .NET

>> development ** has no .NET consulting work whatsoever **. (In fact,

>> if you define "work" for the moment as doing .NET application

>> development, not getting paid for writing .NET articles, or .NET

>> training, or writing .NET books, or selling .NET products, or

>> getting INETA to pay for you to speak at .NET User Groups, or

>> speaking at conferences, at least 2 out the 4 recent VFP -> C# MVPs

>> right now are doing no .NET work at all.) That's .NET in the real

>> world <g>.

Some observations:

1) For these folks this state of affairs is one phone call, or one

referral away from complete reversal.

2) Pioneering costs always include, among other costs, leading the

demand curve with all the opportunity costs and failed experimentation

costs that's implied.

That said, in this particular case, you can buy articles, books, tools,

frameworks, and consulting from people who've not actually done much

of anything, nor apparently do they have customers with real-world

needs with which to refine the said articles, books, tools,

frameworks, and consulting. It's as if by magic our VFP

implementation experience maps more or less to .NET. Maybe so, to

some degree, probably to a degree equivalent to how FP 2.6

implementation experienc eventually mapped to VFP. Maximum.

Still, the hypocrisy emanating from some in our community is, in my

view, outrageous. Reminds me of some over-sold hot tubs. As in "you

won't believe the *action* in the hot tub!". Yeah, right.

The biggest mistake one can make when in a niche market is wish one

wasn't in a niche market.

And if anyone here goes to .NET in a serious way in the near future,

please eventually report back here on how crowded the marketplace is,

what it's like to compete with the book and article writers for

morsels of work, and what it's like to be creating an installed base

and a client portfolio with .NET starting from a zero-knowledge basis.

I once seriously, honestly believed that I could write an accounting

system with Lotus Macros. I was young, and I was wrong. About twenty

years have passed since then. I wonder what some people believe about

.NET today. Achieving one degree of separation with [name here] comes

to mind. This is what people are buying into. Good luck to them, I

hope they don't give us *all* a bad name, which is entirely possible.

**--** Steve

[excessive quoting removed by server]