Hi

I have got to agree that the best solution for database applications is having both a data server and a local data engine. The combination really cannot be beat.

Simon


>>But I believe that Anders discussed it in his interview that VFP is not looked on too highly by the programming industry. I've discussed this in general with some of my dotnet friends. Their question to me is typically along the lines of what can VFP do for them. They don't see a need for VFP type functionality to be ported over.
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>>The people who seem to be screaming the loudest are VFP developers.
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>A lot of people don't know what they are missing... they come from a VB or Java background which never has had any concept of any sort of client side data manipulation. Not only is this a limited view, it can also be a major performance bottleneck as you're pushing a lot of complex data manipulation to a single SQL Server as opposed to spreading some of the result manipulation to business logic code.
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>There are a lot of things that VFP could do to provide much improved functionality in .NET. The loudest and most valid complaint is the lack of a decent local engine that allows you to manipulate data once it's come down from the server. No not a local engine to acess local data necessarily (althought that would surely be nice as well!), but a local cursor engine that allows you to work with large result set data efficiently.
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>This is something that .NET is horrible at and there are no real workarounds other than hacking your data access mechanism to absolutely ensure you never return large result sets - which in the real world is not, well, realistic.
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>One of the reasons a lot of people don't see the point is that they have never really appreciated the flexibility client side data manipulation allows. Not only can this result in better scaling applications in many cases as some hairy logic can be offloaded from a SQL Server, but it also provides a much richer model for manipulating the data which is another thing that .NET doesn't provide natively (although you can roll your own).
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>You can work around this but you shouldn't have to.
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>And lets face it VFP data manipulation is easier to work with than ADO.NET. Don't get me wrong I don't have a big problem with ADO.NET both in terms of functionality and ease of use, but coming from a VFP background I can also appreciate the flexibility that you can gain by a high performance client engine...
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>Also, a lot of what Anders talks about is about language integration. It has little to do with the underlying data technology. A lot of people here are probably reading too much into those first announcements... I wouldn't hold my breath for an implementation that will end being anything at all like VFP's cursor engine. For one thing the engine will support much more than just data from a database. The real question that nobody's talked about yet is what the result will actually go into and what you can do with the result. That's an issue that hasn't even been addressed at this point.
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>+++ Rick ---
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>>PF
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>>>Hi Tom,
>>>
>>>I think Drew has pretty much hit it on the head. One of the problems I recall is that there seems to be a disconnect at MS between high-falootin' data access schemes and the realworld. It's not that they're hostile to VFP's way of doing things, they just don't see the value insofar as trench mentality goes. To clarify: They don't have a trench mentality....I just don't think they see day-to-day line-of-business issues like you all do.
>>>
>>>Arg, this is making my ulcers regenerate. There are a few who do and we can only hope that they have a bigger and bigger say-so in the way things shape up.
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>>>>Have you seen Drew Speedie's blog entry on this topic? Here is the link:
>>>>
>>>>http://blog.visionpace.com/2005/07/net_does_data_n.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Hi Sarosh,
>>>>>
>>>>>But the guy doesn't even know what the "4" in 4GL stands for! Egads!
>>>>>
>>>>>A lot of work is being done to make .Net more data friendly. I can personally attest to this, being a very recent ex-MSFT guy. I won't go into details but veyr very cool things are being done.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Anders Hejlsberg : I think interestingly that there's sort of a resurgence of interest in dynamic languages.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Interesting atricle:
>>>>>>http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1837434,00.asp
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Sarosh