>Frameworks are the best investment a team can make,

Yes, I have a copy of Mere Mortals (latest version with EF integration). I'm the only C# programmer (albeit a beginner+) in the shop.

>Bill's advice may work exactly as he says it does for him, but the idea of doing a complex app that way would terrify me. It's like the days when people got VFP then wrote FPDOS-like code directly against tables in 2 tier apps and were astounded they had problems later on networks and WANs and in moving to a SQL backend.

I personally believe that our apps get very complicated.

>If you're not going with WPF and really like to stick with straight sql check out what Strataframe or MereMortals brings to the table. If your team doesn't already know *about* Linq and finds it scarey you've got some people who *need* the structure of a framework that takes care of things they don't even know are issues.

Agreed. I think if our non-C# programmers think LINQ/EF is complicated they will have a complete meltdown when they see how tedious working with datasets, et al. is like.

>"Roll your own" is exactly the wrong approach for a group like this. Get some help from the framework builders that have been dealing with this stuff for 10 years now while they've been programming in Foxpro.

Unfortunately, we are a non-profit organization where money is tight and I think management will balk at the price of buying a Framework ($699 per developer for MM) and we'll end up rolling our own. Although MM does go down to $399 per year per developer for renewals. Still...