>True, since SYS(2015) is derived from the workstation clock, and workstations on networks are never completely synchronized. It is a pretty sure-fire unique value on one single system, though -- running SYS(2015) in a tight loop on my 3.4 Pentium with 2GB memory did not produce any duplicates during 1000 iterations, though. But a GUID would give you a truly unique ID, every time.
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>The LastPKID() -strategy has a few important benefits, however: While it is a bit more (setup) work than simply getting a GUI, with this approach you can create integer keys, which take a whole lot less space than GUI and are a whole lot faster to search (in a huge data table).
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>I don't personally completely trust the autoincrement -field property in VFP -- it has problems specifically if you use views or stored procedures. Also, since the current autoinc value is stored in the table header, it is at risk during crashes.
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>---
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>By the wey, Cetin, how do you like Ideablade Devforce now that you've been using it for a while? I've been looking at it seriously lately (although I use Strataframe for a lot of my .NET work), mainly because of the Business Object Server (BOS) component, which will play very nicely with Microsoft's new Silverlight environment. As I understand it, Silverlight uses web services to get and set data, and Devforce's BOS can serve data as if it was a web service while making sure that no application specific business rules are broken -- IOW, business rules are created and maintained in one place, whether you have a "regular" n-tier app or one developed with Silverlight.
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>Any comments (good or bad), tips/tricks about the development system in general or major functions in specific?
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>
>Thanks!

Perthi,
IMHO integer keys, by whatever methods you get it, is not a good choice. They cause headaches. "Integer keys are faster" is true for theory and academic tests but in general is not worth to mention the difference (not a lot faster, slightly maybe) and a myth especially if your backend is not VFP.
Autoincs are another problem.

Devforce is nice, and it plays nicely with all the emerging MS technologies. IdeaBlade is MS partner and they're applying MS best patterns and practices as appropriate. For example they said they would use WCF when it's released and they did the day it's released:) Cabana sample not only shows how to implement CAB but teaches how to use CAB etc.
Devforce's BOS is special, it doesn't act as a web service but a full, stateless object server and rpc gateway and security. It has cool features like if you have multiple BOSes you don't have to worry about getting your object from one and setting from the other. All BOSes can serve them (stateless). As wrongly mentinoned somewhere in another framework site page, you do not really get references to biz Objects but biz objects themselves which makes it more robust than a web service.
Yes, from the start you build it once and can use as n-tier or single, all which only needs a configuration change at single place where you do not use connection strings but connection keys (IOW there is no connection string to data server on the client even in encrypted form but a symbolic key that prevents data being comprised).

I would not do good/bad comments as you included other framework names:) In summary, I chose Devforce for a reason. Mark Miller (a VFP developer) has a white paper that you might read from site. Les Pinter, IMHO, summarized it best within a single sentence (you can read on mainpage rotating text).
Cetin