>Yeah it does soudn like an absolute. And if it causes one person to think twice about doing that then it has done the job I want it to, that is make people think before acting.


The funny thing here is that when I go back and read your list, there are few absolutes in the list. Compare:

>7: SET EXACT is often used to cover for not understanding the way strings are compared in xBase.

to

>9: ... Reports are for printing on paper, forms are for showing on screen. Report Preview is for eyeballing before committing to paper.

If you had said, in 7: "Never use SET EXACT ON", I would not argue with that. That's good advice for a novice and for most of us. I'm fully in agreement with the approach: State the rule and when folks know a lot more than can find reasons to violate the rule.

But to say to a novice, "Never expect users to review report data on the screen in lieu of printing it" is simply bad advice. From the get-go.



I'm going to ask some of my users how they use the on-screen reports and write it down. Then I'll get back to you (if you're still interested) and see what kind of form would serve the same end.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Peter