>>Hi,
>>
>>What is the benefit of separating BO and DAL objects vs having one (as referred by West Wind Client Tools) single line business object? Before looking at the WW Client Tools BO I thought it was a must to have BO and DA separated. So now I am wondering, if one object that has the functionality of BO and DAL together is ok?
>>
>>Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts.
>
>
>We currently support two different backends. SQL and VFP because of this we have the DAL and BO separated out and only need to one BO with two different DAL. If we want to add a 3rd DAL all we need to do is code another object and make sure it returns the same type of data to the BO.

Good point. What I was doing is whenever data access was needed I would have a code in 2 conditions, one for SQL Server and one for VFP data. For example,

if plSqlServer    && public variable
   *-- code to access SQL Server
else
   *-- code to access VFP
endif 

The convenience of my approach (which I am sure has drawbacks) is that I see the code for both (or maybe 3rd choice) of database in one place and compare things.

Thank you very much for your input.