Visual FoxPro 9.0 was released a few days ago for beta

The public beta release of Visual FoxPro 9.0 (aka Europa) was released for download just a few days ago. I doubt that this is of much excitement to most folks, but for me it's quite exciting.

I've been programming in Microsoft's Visual FoxPro for about 15 years, and it is a delightful (most of the time!) database programming languge. Lately it has been loosing support in Microsoft who is now favoring Visual Studio .NET (or as some folks say, .NYET). VS.NET has some great things in it and is, I believe, a superior platform in many ways. It has some real drawbacks, but I'm trying to learn it. I feel like I'm in language school again.

Anyway, back to Visual FoxPro. This new release will go into a formal public version in September, but in the meanwhile, it's being released for anyone who wants to do the download to help get the last bugs out of it. If you're curious, go to www.microsoft.com/vfoxpro.

The new version has some very, very nice items in it and I have no doubt that the Donor Manager will be upgraded to Fox9 this fall. Just a word to the wise! And it will be worth the shift.

I'll post a bit from time to time as I get a chance to play with this new release.