>We are looking towards moving everything away from Foxpro and towards a new technology. Probably over 3 to 5 years. These are the layers we initially outlined:
>
>Presentation Layer - Thin client and some thick client (browser-based, Java, C#).
>Application Server Layer - Handle requests from Presentation Layer and outside sources (Java or C#).
>Business Rules Layer - Interpret requests and return/update data in the Data Layer (Java or C#).
>Data Layer - SQL Server or Oracle.
>
>Any very general recommendations as to whether C# or or Java would be better choices? Is there a right and wrong combination of languages across the layers?

Our main app was a VFP application residing on a file server. We re-wrote the UI into ASP.NET then compiled the biz tier (objects) into a COM component. The component was then changes to input and output XML, the data layer remained as VFP. Our app has been running for 2 years now this way. Over that time any new business objects are written a C# class. Any classes in the VFP COM component that need to be changed in a major way are re-written into C# as needed. Eventually they will be pure C#. The C# code, calling the VFP tables via OLEDB is about as fast as using the VFP COM component. That was a suprise! Later this summer we will begin the project to convert the VFP tables/database to SQL Server 2005.

I was in a .NET course last summer with a guy that has been using Java for a few years. His opinion was that the .NET IDE is much more sophisticated, faster and easier to use, the .NET framework is more productive to work with and .NET code is faster. He is a java fan, but in are class he keep saying that .NET was generally much more productive to work with. One man's opinion.

Personally, I haven't found the move to C#/.NET to be too big of a leap. In VFP my world reloved around UI objects with events, and business objects... same in C#.