>>>http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Application-Frameworks-NET-Chen/dp/1590592883/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260829282&sr=8-23
>>>
>>>>Good comments. I guess I'm thinking that in the time it takes to learn what someone else has done, I could write my own - and add or leave out portions to fit my own needs. And the price is right.
>>
>>Excellent Craig. Thanks!
>
>Be sure to check out the copies available from Amazon resellers. I have had excellent luck with those.
>
>FWIW I think your statement that it's as easy to write a framework as learn one may be a little optimistic. JOMO.....

I think it is the difference between finding your way around a city with a map - and building a city. I think in VFP a lot of people fooled themselves into thinking they had written a "framework" - or that they didn't need one at all or that is was cheaper to "roll their own" - and were a whole lot less productive than they might have been because they didn't even understand the issue regarding frameworks. If my only choice would have been VFP out of the box I'd have done something else ten years ago.

In .NET, I think the need for a framework may be a lot less - .NET itself being a framework - but extensions of what .NET does out of the box in order to implement best practices are an immediate need and the novice developer is exactly the person least likely to know what is needed or how to do it. A framework helps one understand the issues, offers some solutions and then you are free to do it however you like.