>What exactly is the purpose of abstract classes in VFP?
Declaring a class as abstract in OTHER languages makes sure that the class won't be instantiated directly. The idea is that the class is somehow incomplete, and that some details have to be filled in at a lower level.
This can't be enforced in Visual FoxPro, but I suppose it still makes sense to use inheritance in such a way that the superclass isn't useful by itself. But again, there is no way to enforce it.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
