{"id":545,"date":"2005-11-10T16:14:42","date_gmt":"2005-11-10T08:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/?p=545"},"modified":"2007-10-10T00:50:31","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T16:50:31","slug":"thoughts-on-thefoxproshow-024-better-late-than-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/archives\/545","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on TheFoxProShow 024 (Better late than never)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was archiving the access logs of Pixelcatalyst.Lair<\/a> and Foxpro.catalyst while The FoxPro Show 024<\/a> was playing once again in the background. <\/p>\n

I did hint a while back<\/a> that I’ll be posting something TFPS024<\/a> related. The FoxPro Show 25<\/a> came out, then 26<\/a>, 27<\/a>, 28<\/a>, 29<\/a>, 30<\/a> and 31<\/a>… a couple of Mondays podcasts<\/a> were also released and after a month, I’m still here unable to scribble those buffered thoughts. <\/p>\n

OzFoxRocks<\/a> even went online a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

So I was thinking it was about time I ‘unbuffer<\/a>‘ those buffered thoughts which a couple of minutes ago are being electrocuted by strange toon-porn infested neurons.<\/p>\n

There’s a problem though with unbufferring a month old casing of thoughts. The mind-to-fingertips-to-keyboard coordination just won’t work smoothly.<\/p>\n

Though I remember most things discussed in the show, I would like to double check on one detail.<\/p>\n

Now there’s a difference too, when you’re working, archiving, reading some parts and listening at the same time through an P850.00<\/font> (1<\/font> US dollar = P55.00<\/font>) speaker… I kept on skipping the part where that detail was being discussed.<\/p>\n

It was an insfoxpirational show, so I didn’t mind listening again and again. <\/p>\n

After the fifth replay though I noticed that ants and a couple of six legged entities were slowly swarming in.<\/p>\n

Sixth replay and I’m seeing metal plated grasshoppers with tiny boxing gloves and soccer shoes. <\/p>\n

Now… It was the fear of the eight-legged creatures weaving out that got me to stop the other works and concentrate on listening… and there on the 13:27<\/font> timestamp, I found what I was looking for.<\/p>\n

I’m currently multitasking once again (I can’t seem to blog if I’m not doing some other stuff, and returning to this window every now and then to continue my chain of thought (and listening to some loud Moby stuff)), so I hope I get this right.<\/p>\n

Ken Levy was giving out the 100:1 ratio in terms of Visual Studio\/Visual FoxPro’s usage. Which he further places on a different perspective that based on that 100:1<\/font> stat, VS can gain in three days what VFP can sell for a year.<\/p>\n

(That would make approximately 122:1<\/font> though, but still… we get the point.)<\/p>\n

My first thought\/reaction when I first heard this a month ago was why not re-include Visual FoxPro (without changing the VFP core) inside the Visual Studio package.<\/p>\n

Ah there… I’m hearing the uproar of CLR purists (and yes I admit I’m not an expert at this marketing\/branding stuff (besides Microsoft’s licensing and pricing is not that simple to start with)).<\/p>\n

But let’s just do a little elementary math.<\/p>\n

Approximately VFP’s price is 650<\/font> dollars. <\/p>\n

Now… Visual Studio comes with different prices and I don’t have the actual statistics to show which edition\/package sells better. But for the sake of this blogcussion, let’s pick the Professional Edition which is around 800<\/font> dollars. <\/p>\n

Now let’s go back to that 100:1<\/font> ratio above. If VFP can sell 100<\/font> copies in 300<\/font> days, VS can sell the same number in three days. <\/p>\n

(Let’s use 300<\/font> instead of 365<\/font> since this is ‘elementary math’ and I will refrain from using the ‘for the sake of discussion’ line from here forth)<\/p>\n

Going further VS can sell 100 * (300\/3)<\/font> copies in 300<\/font> days. And that is 10,000<\/font>.<\/p>\n

Now for the sake of discussion (didn’t I mention that I would refrain from using that already…), let’s include VFP inside VS and just jack up the price of VS to 800<\/font> + N dollars (where N is less than VFP’s current price). <\/p>\n

(I know VFP is worth MORE and if I have enough bucks I wouldn’t mind buying VFP even if it’s base price is more than 650. Legacy is priceless… but just FTSOD (For The Sake of Discussion)).<\/p>\n

Now if N = 50<\/font> then, 850 * 10,000<\/font> is 8,500,000<\/font>. <\/p>\n

The additional 50 * 10,000<\/font> alone is 500,000<\/font>. Much more than 650 * 100<\/font> which is equal to a 65,000<\/font>. <\/p>\n

And even if N = 10, 10 * 10,000<\/font> is still 100,000… 935,000<\/font> more than 650 * 100<\/font>.<\/p>\n

Yes I know I know… the pricing of these shrinkwrap softwares are more complicated than elementary math and there are tons of factors involved.<\/p>\n

And for the nth time, the things posted above are FTSOD. Though there are possible benefits for both products (VS and VFP) and the community as well, if MS packs back VFP inside the Visual Studio package.<\/p>\n

And there are disadvantages too, which are in the first place the reasons why VFP was not included inside that .NET package. (As discussed inside the Fox.wikis site<\/a>, the Universal Thread forums<\/a> and countless other fox sites.) <\/p>\n

(Also notable are the advantages of shipping Visual FoxPro as an independent product.)<\/p>\n

A clientbase of 100,000<\/font> (though I think VFP’s actual client base is more than that) is still NOT negligible. <\/p>\n

And if you can remember around 2,000<\/font> years ago, a shepherd left 99<\/font> sheep to find one missing sheep. Though the FoxPro community is far from being lost sheep, we deserve the same kind of lovin’.<\/p>\n

Right..?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was archiving the access logs of Pixelcatalyst.Lair and Foxpro.catalyst while The FoxPro Show 024 was playing once again in the background. I did hint a while back that I’ll be posting something TFPS024 related. The FoxPro Show 25 came out, then 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31… a couple of Mondays podcasts were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-randomscribbles","category-visual-foxpro","category-workblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}