>I have years of VFP experience and after a SQL SELECT you will see either a _TALLY or a SELECT to teh new cursor. You will also see a SELECT at the bottom of a scan loop right before the ENDSCAN. I am not a beginner, it makes the code easier to read.

Not easier for me, though.

When do you use _tally? Always? Why and how? I use it sometimes, most notably if a result of zero records must be dealt with in a special manner. But in that case it's the functional design that forces me to use it, not merely a (useless) habit.

Adding a SELECT at the bottom of an SCAN loop also implies that there is an additional line to recode (so, there's a maintenance issue here) if you change the alias name that is scanned. And why don't you also add a SELECT right after the SCAN command, to make things even 'clearer'?

And how about functions? Almost all functions have defaults for their parameters. But if you oppose the idea that pro's should know the defaults, then you probably also always specify the parameters anyway? And how is that done?

dimension ArrayName[1]
cFileSkeleton = curdir() && equals default
cAttribute    = ''       && equals default
nFlag         = 0        && equals default
nFound = ADIR( ArrayName, cFileSkeleton, cAttribute, nFlag )