Well, I'm not one of the duffers who will be safely shuffled off to retirement by 2015, nor am I one of those two pesky little brats that were scurrying around here somewhere. No, like a fine, golden wine, I'm aged to perfection, and hitting my stride as I sail through the tree of life. (mixed metaphors at no extra cost). So I need to worry about the future.
For the short run, VFP. Beginning SOON, want to get into Dabo, Python and PHP. I will be looking at cross platform (XAMP) first, open source second. I may look into .net to see if it's something I'll need to support, but it seems to me to be starting to die off. Realbasic? Hmmmmm.... BASIC sounds so toy-like..... Java, IMHO, is fading, and I flat out suck at VC++. (To paraphrase E. A. Poe: "I suck with a suck that is more than a suck.") Python seems to be the way to go - it's cross platform, and easy for me to understand. I've been amazed at the times I've dusted it off and played with it, how the code just *works*, and how few lines of code it takes to work. I love the write-once, deploy many concept of cross platform. I agree that there aren't a lot of Python jobs listed out there, but I think the number is growing. More importantly, that mostly affects W2 people. As my own boss, I can hire myself to work in whatever language I want. ( I also consistently win "Employee of the Month", but I digress). I hear the shrill protests begin: "Yaw, but you can't work in whatever language you want without customers wanting the language!" Ah, Contraire, mi Akole Pukah! (Mixed languages - see? Easy!) I've built up my business to the point now where *I* tell my customers what language I'll be using (if they even care). They basically just come to me as say "I need a program to do this and that, and generate this report." The rest is up to me. Mostly I use VFP because a lot of stuff is still support work, and because I can work fastest in it, but it's just a matter of getting organized, downloading the latest Dabo setup (again), and getting started. In summary: VFP for now, heading towards Python/Dabo, with the overriding important consideration being cross-platform. _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
