The main app i'm working with know is a thick client Java app. All the meta data is done thru XML.

There's a very popular framework in Java ( a port was done to .net) called Spring. It has the concept of injection. An xml file at the lower level indicates which class to load in a given scenario. The top most file will indicate which file to load at the lower level given a particular code.

XML files are also used to describe columns and their properties for a given table (grid).

>I definitely don't want to get in the middle of a pie throwing contest between you and Walter <g> ( I have the good sense never to try to punch above my weight class ) but I am interested in the idea of meta-data. I am a .net novice but love SQL as a data store and use it exclusively in my VFP apps. (thanks to the Feltmans - pretty sure I'd find it tedious without the strength of the framework) Having DBCX available on the VFP side is very powerful.
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>Anyway, I am very used to having a metadata store and data-driving a lot of stuff in VFP and have been looking for places in .Net where that would be appropriate. i realize classes are instantiated differently so some of factory patterns that are used in VFE might not be relevant. I use Strataframe in .NET and there is an ongoing discussion there, often fueled by Fox people, about encouraging Microfour to expand their Data Deployment Toolkit ( which uses smo to deploy and synch sql schemas ) to be more of a general metadata store. They already implement something like msgsvc as part of the framework.
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>I realize this is kind of an amorphous question, but any thoughts you have ( or references to things you or others may have written on the subject ) about metadata in .Net would be most welcome.
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>( also was rereading your excellent Bakers Dozen on SQL 2005 yesterday and think about the usefulness of OUTPUT with newsequentialid but I'll save that for a seperate thread ... )
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>>Yawn.
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>>Walter, last year you kept criticizing my statement about how stored procs can be flexibile - NULL handling was part of your argument. Well, I demonstrated to everyone how you can use sprocs for updates that handle NULLs as well as "change-tracking". I know that a few people wound up using what I posted.
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>>I have zero interest in debating someone who states the following:
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>>I'm convinced we should be so arrogant in proclaiming that we are one of the few who knows how to handle data. From what I've seen in the .NET world (but also the java world) and also from the .NET experts here, there really is a lack of realism what the power of data is and how data should be done.
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>>Some of your notions, specifically embedded meta-data in EXEs, are more hacked-out solutions, and hardly scalable (not only in the obvious sense, but also for the size of the development teamm). I really get the feeling from many of your posts that you often work on very small teams, or teams of one.
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>>Now...if someone else wants to jump in with a relevant example that can be realistically compared, I'll consider a comparison.