>>>>We are planning to rewrite a VFP application which uses DBFs to .NET and SQL Server. The system is extremely large and is comprised of a large number of subsystems invoked from a main PRG and menu. It is not considered feasible to convert everything at once. Instead the plan is to rewrite a piece at a time as resources and budget become available. Has anyone done something like this? To me it seems like the data is going to have to reside in both VFP and SQL Server until everything is converted. Any tips on good ways to do that?
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>>>>Thanks in advance.
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>>>Something else to throw into the mix (if someone else hasn't already done it)... Advantage Database Server allows you to access a DBF from both the database server and VFP. So if you have two modules that access the same table and are migrating one module at a time, you can do it. It is the only database server that can do this, while still providing the same basic database services as SQL Server, and it has a .NET provider. Once all code has been rewritten in .NET, you could then move the entire database to SQL Server if you want.
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>>>I don't use Advantage, but that's what I hear. I think both Doug Hennig and Ken Levy have written/talked about it.
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>>I had not heard of Advantage but will definitely look into it. Thanks.
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>I've used Advantage Local Database server as a means to access foxpro tables from Delphi so a Delphi app could share data with a VFP app. It worked really well. It's been too long though (5 years) - I don't remember all the details anylonger.

It has been more years than that since I used Delphi. I really liked it and saw what it could do. The coolest software development shop east of Silicon Valley was where I was hanging my hat. We used Delphi for all custom development other than some low level machine controllers that were written in C or C++. Terrific power to weight ratio, as they say of boxers. You could go just as low level (if not as fast) as C and as gooey as VB.

I should write a book about that company some day. It won't touch TSOANM, nothing probably ever will, but it would be a good story. And I wouldn't have to inflate a thing. We had all the latest developer software, all the latest hardware (T1 and huge monitors), everything you could want to write great software. We had an in-house rock band that wasn't half bad, including a guitarist from the factory automation group who played so well I sometimes suspected he was in the witness protection program. The drummer, a clear disciple of Mighty Max Weinberg, was the company treasurer. We had free food 24 hours a day in the company kitchen, whatever you wanted. Froot Loops, Sugar Smacks, and the like were oxygen. You could go slightly upscale to frozen delights like cheeseburgers and Eskimo Pies. It was a very specific environment, at least that I have experienced.

I left for two very specific reasons. It was the sort of company where you could work any 60 hours of the week you liked. We were in small teams -- typically a tech lead, two devs, and two QAs, one of whom acted as the project manager -- and we were all committed together from the start. And there I was saying I have to go, I want to see my daughter before she goes to sleep and maybe even my wife. Everyone said the right things but on some level I was leaving to go home and the amount of work had not shrunk, it had just shifted. The other was my alcoholism had already started to manifest itself. I missed days and let my teammates down when I had no excuse.

It might not be a bad book. This thought is undoubtedly influenced by Keith Richards's autobiography being in the top two of my reading pile this week. I am reluctant to trod down the path of any number of egomaniacs who think their messed up lives deserve a published memoir. What I envision is oral history at its best, the questioner out of sight. This might turn into a very interesting project.