>Hi George,
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>>Well, as I see it, cross-platform is pretty much of a dead issue so why keep that stuff around.
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>No question about that!
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>>The question here really is, is it worth it from MS's perspective? I don't know the answer. Given the problems it creates, my gut reaction is to say yes. However, there may be other things that I'm not aware of.
>
>Exactly, that's the question that no-one here can answer. But I would say it's not worth it. Who suffers from the problem the cross-platform stuff causes? Microsoft? Nope, we suffer. So, what advantages would Microsoft have when they change that? Do they sell more VFP products? Probably not, because a) it's bundled with Visual Studio and b) many other developers already have a tool that handles UI better than VFP. And when they position it as a middletier development tool? People will still use VB for front-ends, but many developers might be interested in checking out VFP for really powerfull middle-tier components where other languages either don't offer enough due to the lack of inheritance or a flexible object model (VB), or because they are too complex (VC++).
>
>Certainly, they will continue to enhance the core product, but the put more effort into the middle tier stuff. Look at VFP 6.0, how much of it is targetted at internet, COM, DCOM and so on. And SP 3, almost everything new (except for bug fixes) is for middletier components and COM servers.
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Hi Christof,

One of the purposes of my original post was to point out that there was a great deal of potential benefit in implementing this sort of change. If it isn't implemented, then I would surmise that other considerations made it impossible.

Putting this on a more personal level, if I had a large segment of code, that I could possibly do away with, and that was part of the root cause of some problems, I would certainly investigate doing so. I would do so, however, at a time when the overall system was being re-designed. If, however, I found quantifiable reasons for not doing it, then I wouldn't. This is certainly analogous to what's happening with VFP now. Porting to a 64 bit OS involves more than simply adding new header files and re-compiling.

While n-tier certainly has its place, there will still be solutions requiring a single tier. If both facets of the product can possibly be improved by implementing a change such as this, then it makes even more sense to do so.

Lastly, while SP3 does bring new potential for the middle tier, I wouldn't say it does so exclusively. The Datasession object can be utilized effectively in a single tier solution. As a matter of fact, that's how I'm using it now. For me, it was a very welcome addition. Now if we can get a visual DE (out side of a form or report), I'll be thrilled. (I've always thought that the current implementation of the DE is backwards. It makes the DE a function of the form/report, rather than the other way around which it should be.)