No more VFP10?

No more VFP10? A message posted by a UT member :

*** The Loop *** From: "Gary Shurman"
OK. I had lunch with Ken Levy at DevEssentials in Kansas City last month. I
asked if they were working on version 10. His response was basically -
what new features would you like added? He felt that the product was
very complete now and unless we as a VFP developers could come up with
enough new ideas to make the product sell more, there would be no 10.
He also said that members of the VFP team at Microsoft have been
working with the .Net team to port the VFP functions to .Net. He
didn't say that VFP will become part of .Net, only that functions are
being ported.

As far as VFP and Longhorn were concerned, he said that it would be
like going from DOS to Windows. Most older apps would run, but would
be ugly. Since Longhorn isn't expected until sometime in 2006 and it
will take some time after that before our clients buy PCs with
Longhorn installed, I'm sure Microsoft will have solutions for us with
either a new version of VFP or a .Net that will be easy to port our apps to.

Let's see what Ken Levy said :

Much of what Gary Shurman posted (copied at the end of this message for reference) is either out of context or incorrect. In every case someone asked me about what will be done after version 9.0 of Visual FoxPro is released, I basically responded with a question asking people what features they would like to see.

I also mentioned what some people have commented that Visual FoxPro is very mature. In no way did I mention anything about us not enough features being suggestion had any impact on decisions. Also, unlike what was posted by Gary, there are no members of the Visual FoxPro team working on Visual Studio or .NET. The Visual FoxPro team is working on Visual FoxPro 9.0 only. What I said was that many people on the Visual Studio and the .NET Framework teams have been and are continuing to review Visual FoxPro and add new features based on it.

Many of the great data-centric and other features in Visual FoxPro are being added to future Visual Studio and .NET products and technologies. Refer to Alan Griver's recent blog post at http://blogs.msdn.com/vsdata/archive/2004/07/29/201070.aspx (Data/Language Integration in .NET (by yag)). Similarly, the Visual FoxPro team continues to review Visual Studio .NET and SQL Server features and add them to Visual FoxPro 9.0 like the XMLAdapter enhancements, Data Server Explorer, new DBF data types, new SQL language extensions, and more.

I did not mention any specifics about Longhorn or any release dates. I did not make any comments about anything about porting Visual FoxPro applications for Longhorn or .NET, that part is completely fabricated and I don't even know where that summary was derived from based on the conversation.Suggested references are to read this recent interview with Bill Gates discussing Longhorn... especially the part with:
"Question: What about legacy application support? Is there a straightforward path for moving older applications into the Longhorn era?: Answer: We demonstrated VisiCalc running on Longhorn today, to show that 20 years of compatibility is a serious thing--people who want to run Electric Pencil and dBase and early versions of 1-2-3 if they want. We have built a compatible operating system. That's one of the things that Microsoft does. We have put a lot of resources into it. Even if we are providing new capabilities, we run those existing applications and make sure there are benefits with those applications. The greatest benefit comes with a new application written for Longhorn."

I have not talked to Tore Bleken since I was in Europe last month, but I can see he has a great memory from the conversations in Kansas City (DevEssentials) and other Visual FoxPro events last in June. The response message Tore posted on the UniversalThread.com about this original post from Gary Shurman is completely correct and accurate. Here is what Tore posted on the Universal Thread...

> Tore Bleken #009436
> Bleken Elektronikk AS
> Stokke, Norway
> Forum: Thread ID: 929312
> Category: Message ID: 929746
> Title: Re: Ken Levy Speaks?
> I had dinner with Ken in KC, and I can confirm that Ken said something like what is written in your message. However, we > was very clear not to give any indications about any potential versions after VFP9. His comments was basically that the > decision about that was not taken, and would not even be discussed within Microsoft before VFP9 is released, and 'the dust > > has settled'. As you may know, I spent more than a week with Ken a month ago since he drove with me in my car around > > > Europe. During that time, the topic was mentioned many times, and he always made it clear that the Visual FoxPro team was totally > focused on VFP9, and that since no discussions had been held within Microsoft, no conclusion or indications could be given.
> Tore

When I ask someone a question, it does not imply anything. For example, if I ask someone "What do you think of adding feature...to Visual FoxPro?" in no way implies that we are planning on adding that feature to Visual FoxPro. Please, if something important about Visual FoxPro does not come from a Microsoft web site or an email/message posted online directly by me, then you should first assume that it is possibly incorrect and out of context. It is not advised that anyone makes decisions or spread rumors based on information that was possibly altered by mistake and turned into gossip. :)

More information about Visual FoxPro as well as announcements about upcoming version 9.0 can be found at http://msdn.com/vfoxpro, especially in the monthly letters (including archive) at http://msdn.com/vfoxpro/letters. When the August letter is posted online next week, it will include some answers to common questions that have been asked lately, so be sure to check it out. I will probably use some of the information in this post in the letter as well. :)