John:

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To me, an entity object is used in the analysis model/phase.
Are we talking about objectifying a table here?
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(1) IMO, Kevin was speaking of objectifying a table.

(2) The terms Business Entity and Business Manager arose from discussions with a client after they just took classes on ERM. We use the term Business Entity to designate an object that does not know how to manage itself. A BE knows how to read-write a property, when it was created and/or flagged for deletion, push and pop its properties and at which level it was pushed. A Business Manager manages business entities. A form sends message to its business manager which may handle it (in the case of a save for example) or pass it along to the appropriate business entity (witing to a property). A business entity may be viewed as a node of a tree. A business manager is the root of this tree. It is the only node that can send and receive messages outside of the tree.

We use business entities for database and non-database applications. For example, we use BE to track live processes from beginning to end.

Although I am not happy with the length of this assignment (4 years), I learned a lot about tracking live data. People generally link VFP with database development but they tend to forget that one of its strength is its ability to create a class hierarchy that can be used for any type of application. We used VFP instead of Delphi (which would have been my choice for several of the projects) because (i) VFP supports inheritance, (ii) the client's developers were already familiar w1ith xBase syntax, and (iii) the client didn't want its developers to spend too much time learning Windows development tools when the bulk of their system is in COBOL. VFP's flexibility won.

I can expand a little more if you have specific questions in mind.

Daniel