>As to get and set methods... I understand that in Java, for example, this is the recommended practice, to encapsulate (hide from other parts of the program) details about the internal workings of the class. However, in Visual FoxPro 6 and later there is another way to do this - access and assign methods. In other words, you may decide to store a value in an object property, which has a certain name, type, and data structure. But if you later decide to change the internal workings of the object, you can intercept calls to the object, from outside, with access and assign methods - and store the information in a completely different way - without having to change programs that call it.
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>Now, I don't know whether this is a "recommended practice", but it does give you an alternative.

It is recommended, by me :).

To differ from those code-heavy tools, in VFP you don't need to write the Get and Set methods (aka _access and _assign), because you can make any property directly available without writing a single byte of code. But you can, if you want. So, the best of both worlds - available and not mandatory.