I've had a number of these type of issues with clients. A couple of thoughts about the two products you mention:

VFP is, as we all know, is a far better, faster, etc. data engine than Access.

I don't know much about PowerBuilder, but a fellow programmer/consultant I know recently took a job doing PowerBuilder and he went through training, etc. for PB. He just told me the other day that they had to write their own functions for things like EMPTY(), STRTRAN(), etc. because they don't exist in the PB language. Also, he said that the development environment in VFP is better. And, it is not truly OOP. He did say that accessing the Windows registery is easier in PB (built in functions). All I can say was "I'm damn glad I use VFP!"

I believe the multi-user issue is also better served by VFP. It's so easy to take care of most multi-user issues in VFP since the data engine is built in, the DBC has such good RI, buffering, etc. makes the development of multi user applications much easier to work with and maintain long term.


>I have been contracted to write a single user application in PowerBuilder using MS Access as the native database. I am trying to convince the employer that VFP would be the better choice. The employer says this app may become a multi-user app and he wants to keep his basis covered. Could I get other opinions?