>Hello,
>I've been reading the threads on .Net frameworks to try and decide which one also, and really want to thank everyone for their comments. May I just chime in here and ask a question. I played with both Strataframe and MM.net only a month or 2 at a time, and took the mm.net class about 3 years ago. I was super impressed by the support on both products.
>
>The one seemingly blaring difference between the two frameworks for me, seemed to be that Strataframe requires SQL Server as your database, in fact the framework IDE requires it for development and storing all the metadata about the BOs, etc. MM does not require SQL server for the IDE or as your app's database. Which to me at least, seems desirable, because I fully expect to be creating some small web apps for customers for simple purposes which may make practical sense to use Access DB's or even just XML files as data stores. Also, requiring SQL server to be running and connected for my IDE seems to slow getting into the IDE environment. Yes, VFP spoiled me. Oh, how I wish .Net were that fast...
>
>Anyway, can anyone comment on this difference, and whether I miss interpreted it or not? TIA
>
>Mark


Hi Mark.

I see you come from CodeMine. I do too. And I mean, I still do a lot with it and VFP9.
StrataFrame does require SQL Server for its metadata database, but that hasn't been an issue to me. I have been working with it installed on my notebook (SQL 2005 Express) or on the server (SQL Server 2005) and haven't found it to be any slower because of that.

As for your application database, it doesn't need to be SQL Server, although I prefer it, since the Express version will cover scenarios where the full version might be too much for any reason. StrataFrame natively supports SQL Server, Oracle, Visual Foxpro and Access. Or any OLE DB provider. Moreover, there are plenty of methods for you to create and maintain XML files used for data-storage, have a look in the help file under "XmlBasics Class".

Cheers.