>>Bill:
>>
>>For what it is worth, you may want to look at at a short tutorial I set up on how to create a relatively simple data bound form in VFP and immediately turn it into .NET with eTecnologia's compiler. You can see it here:
>>
>>http://groups.google.com/group/vfpnet-compiler-community-support-group/web/create-a-databound-vfp-net-form?&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fvfpnet-compiler-community-support-group%2Fweb%2Fcreate-a-databound-vfp-net-form%3Fmsg%3Dns
>>
>>It's coming along, as you can see.
>>
>>Pertti
>>
>
>I'll take a look at it this weekend.
>
>Thanks!

You bet. It really only takes about 5 minutes to look through it, if that, unless you want to try and build the same thing by yourself (you would need the compiler to do that).

There are many really great things about this kind of an approach, at least for VFP developers (and others too, lest they be scared away by the "foxhead"):

- Do your development/test/tweak/test/tweak -cycle all in the interpreted VFP environment

- Use VFP's superior (IMHO) class model for inheritance (e.g., change font color in your base class and watch all inherited classes get the message immediately without any of the additional hand-waving you have to do in .NET, to mention just one)

- Use VFP's superior (IMHO) data access/manipulation/handling etc., INCLUDING the cursor engine! Use SQL commands or record oriented commands just like in VFP, connect seamlessly to VFP tables (which under this system have the 2MB table limit removed (!))

- Use VFP's simple project interface to keep all moving parts together and easily accessible

- Use VFP's simple databinding concepts (forget about ADO...), VFP's builders, VFP's customizeable intellisense, VFP's automatic control & label generation from database container settings

- Yaada yaada yaada.

If eTecnologia can really pull this off (as they seem to be able to, at least thus far), this would be a killer .NET framework, AFAIK. Of course, the Road Ahead (as Bill Gates would say) is Long and Winding (as Paul McCartney & John Lennon would say), but sometimes a fearless little dude with a simple slingshot can achieve amazing results (just ask Goliath).

Yet, "it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future" (as Mark Twain would say).

Pertti


Pertti