>All,
>
>Within my current discussion with John Petersen about the differences between SQL and xBase data manipulation commands, the following came in mind:
>

Walter, I have not read the entire thread, but I saw the thread map, and judging by the names you have been discussing this with, I'm guessing that I will not be the first to disagree.

If VFP 7.0 came out with this functionality, not only would I not use the new 'feature', I would probably quickly start using another tool besides VFP. There are huge areas of real advances that the VFP team could be working on, and if found that they had been spending time on this, I would know for sure that they were led by a monkey with no vision of the future.

If there is a problem with the performance of SQL access to tables the way it is implemented now relative to performing similar tasks through xBase commands, it means that the VFP team needs to improve performance of SQL access, not attempt to make xBase methods more usable. IMHO, an approach like yours would be a 10 mile leap backwards in all the advances that VFP has made.

I have been using VFP for a little over 2.5 years, and NEVER, NOT ONCE used any of the following commands:

SET RELATION
SET KEY
SET SKIP TO
SET FIELDS

I don't even know how to use this stuff, I would have to look at the VFP help.

I have written a fair share of applications, none of them with a performance problem. Not to say I never ran into performance problems, but I worked around all of them without using the commands above.

I believe that MS expanding on VFP's xbase capabilities would be VFP's death warrant, because it would be a sure sign that VFP is not moving with the rest of the world.