Tom,

>1) Is it to late for someone to start getting up on n-tier so they can get some of the "action" you are talking about?>

Definitely not! There are still many companies out there who are just beginning or are getting ready to make the move.

>2) If not, how can you start getting your feet wet?

1. First of all, I recommend getting familiar with the concept of business objects. Of all the tiers in an n-tier application, this is the one that developers struggle with most--both conceptually and in practice. If you subscribe to FoxPro Advisor, I've written two articles that introduce you to the basics:

7/99 - "Visual FoxPro Business Objects"
12/99 - "Create Business Objects Then Put Them to Work"

There's also a great book on the subject in the VB community that I highly recommend: "Visual Basic 6 Business Objects", by Rockford Lhotka, Wrox Press. Although it's not VFP-specific the major concepts are presented in an easy-to-understand way and translate well to Visual FoxPro.

2. Get your hands on a VFP Framework that uses business objects. For example F1 Technologies' FoxExpress or our (Oak Leaf Enterprises) Mere Mortals Framework ...our Developer's Guide spends a good number of pages explaining the concept and implementation of business objects in a Visual FoxPro application. We also offer training classes that focus on building desktop applications that scale to the Internet/n-Tier architectures.

3. Go to DevCon in Miami or one of the smaller regional VFP conferences. A good number of sessions cover this very topic. For example, I've got two sessions in Miami:

"From the Desktop to the Internet"
"VFP7 Automation Server Enhancements"

4. Get your hands on "Code" magazine published by Markus Egger and Rick Strahl. The main focus of this magazine is on component development, n-Tier application design and development.

Regards,