>When developing any but the most simplistic applications a framework will force you to learn more than you ever wanted to know about VFP ;).

In general I like Frameworks. But here is a wishlist for Framework developers. What I'd really like to see is a Framework library -- that is a library that makes it simple to develop your own Framework. Even the most flexible Framework forces you to stay within certain limits -- to travel in a certain direction. Generally, most developers will live within these limitations or work around them rather than spending the time it would take to develop our own Framework from scratch. If you look at the real cost of developing a Framework from scratch, it is unlikely you can justify it economically. But there are real advantages to developing your own Framework -- because you could take things in the direction you preferred.

For me the perfect compromise would be a library -- sort of Stonefield on steroids, or a version of Mere Mortals where the utilities and objects were much more loosely coupled and independent of one another. Don't know if there is enough demand to justify a commercial developer coming up with something of this sort -- but I supspect if it existed some of us would use it.

P.S.

Even if such libraries become available, you probably would want to use someone else Framework in your first few projects. You learn a heck of a lot from using frameworks -- especially if you don't just take the defaults, but use to hooks to combine them with your custom code.

P.S.S.

There is a way you can use a Framework without learning much -- just accept the defaults, limit yourself the what the Framework does easily and pursuade the client to drop any requirements that don't match this methodology.

I once had to salvage a project where this had been done. The client was complaining about the Framework -- but the Framework was actually quite suitable to the project. The developer had simply never bothered to learn Foxpro, and thus could not use any of the hooks to attach custom code! Obviously an example of how not to do use a Framework.

One of the things I like about Mere Mortals is that it is almost impossible to do in that Framework. You have to understand something about how VFP works , to produce even a simple form in that framework -- a strong plus, not a minus as far as I am concerned.