>>>>>>>>>So how does .NET differ from, say, VFP ?
>>>>>>>>It's in the philosophy of application. Either local compute, storage, communication, or remote.
>>>>>>>So how do they differ ?
>>>>>>>The same choices are available for both platforms.
>>>>>>Look ahead, Viv. It's in .NET's design. If you can't see it ... I can't help you.
>>>>>Why not?
>>>>It's one of those things you either see and understand, or not.
>>>
>>>And there was me thinking that the idea of UT was that people who understand things can explain them to people who do not :-{
>>
>>
>>It works sometimes. Not always. "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
>
>Ah well. I've only been using .NET for 10 years - guess I don't know it well enough.
>Perhaps you can give me an example of one think that .NET forces you to do that VFP does not ?

I personally think that the days of programming everything yourself are numbered whether that is VFP or .NET. The future of developing database apps is much more in development environments like WinDev, Servoy, Lianja and others. Those application frameworks are much more productive as the provisions of e.g. cross platform, windows/browser development, support for tablet/smartphones, security, cloud based computing etc come out of the box. Sure there will be applications that are more suitable from ground up but I'm convinced the majority will be written in such application development platforms. And rather than worrying about the datatypes to keep the compiler happy, focus will be much more on the what? rather than how?