>We just need some type of apples to apples comparison here. I will agree that NO other tool works like fox with its native data access. But I will also say that the majority of the world doesn't work like this. The majority of the world works in a set based environment. They bring down to the desktop a reasonable amount of data and work on that. Is this a valid assumption ?

I wonder...is it?

Consider this from a database-agnostic standpoint. If the business world truly works in a set-based environment, general processing would be:

a) The user queries the database
b) A set is returned
c) The user does something to the set
d) The set is returned to the DB

"D" is of course optional. The user might just be querying for reporting purposes.

The failure of set-based processing is the rule that all data is processed in sets. It seems to me, this is only true for reporting, although it can be valid for data entry if batches are required (or allowed). Transactional processing, however, strikes me more as decision-based, where given the condition of an individual record ("row" if you are Joe Celko), one or more activities must be done - write back to the dB, flag as invalid, do additional processing, whatever.

VFP and ADO.Net support both set-based and transational processing. So, we have an additional dimension to the argument as to which is better.