Here's the beginning of a list of commonly misused and abused features, functions, and commadns fo VFP.
2: SET FILTER TO ... is very often used where another construct would do the job much more efficiently and with better performance.
>You're right - but it gets a class room projects completed!

This is about the real-world, not school and play-time...< s > ...

3: & the macro expansion feature is too often used where it is either not necessary or ther is a bettter way to accomplish the same goal.
>But it's powerful - it's save me miles and mile of "IF" constructs, but I try to pass by reference, when I can.
>

If you have miles and miles if If statements, the Case statement is usually a better alternative.

4: Filtered indexes, are often used where they are not necessary. The same result can be obtained using SQL without the overhead of having an extra index tag around all the time.
>But SQL is slow - why normalize if you SQL?

Says who??? My guess is that it is your implemention that is flawed.

5: UNIQUE indexes, not only are they misused but they could easily be totally removed from the product without any alteration in capabilities.
>I don't think so - this guy helps when you have the same child key associated with differnt parents in a time line. If you need the childs history - you don't necessarily need to see the detail for the child for every parent.
>

Total nonsense. Then again, you don't use SQL... < s >... That is the correct tool for the job.

6: PUBLIC variables are often used in situations where they are totally not required.
>Tru - but there great for trace routing and testing.

Ever hear of break points and assertion testing????

>>7: SET EXACT is often used to cover for not understanding the way strings are compared in xBase. This causes the loss of a lot of functionality that is inherent in the product in order to adapt to a lack of knowledge.
>Yes, but its great when you need to instance partial keys!

What???? What does that mean??? Instance partial keys...


If you are in school, I suggest you hit the books a bit more... < s >....