John,

I like VFE quite a bit. It's the most OOPy, n-tier or all of framework. From what I can tell Mere Mortals is the only other one that comes very close, but VFE seems to have a larger support system of training, help, add-ons, hentzenwerk book, etc.

And at the "Framework Roundup" at last week's GLGDW, VFE was the only one that didn't crash during the demonstrations! Sometimes it's hard to figure out the practical advantagas of all of this theoretical OOP, n-tier stuff. The crashes were a good example of how the better object model results in more stability.

The main learning curve with VFE wasn't the framework itself, but being thrown in the deep end of OOP, n-tier development. I had been reading about it and using objects and such, but to use VFE properly I had to get rid of all of those old procedural habits I had been holding onto. But one of my goals with the framework was to start programming "correctly" and more professionally, so this I saw as an advantage. Without the framework I'd still be stumbling around making a mess of my own object model.

You can use the wizards to create a fully functioning app understanding almost nothing of what goes on behing the OOP scenes, but to work with the framework to add your own business logic in a "correct" way you need some understanding of the object model. I'm still learning.

As for performance, they did some comparisons at the Framework Roundup and VFE was comparable to the others on everything except form load, but they were all careful to point out that this has been fixes in a recent service pak. You will have more overhead with any framework since it's doing a lot more, but this hasn't been a major issue for me.

I took the class they offer with Charles Hankey and that really got me up to speed very quickly. We developed two apps in 5 days. I think except for some specific business logic, we had a functional app up before lunch on the first day.

If you go to Charles' training in Vegas in Dec and then the VFE Devcon (they're back-to-back) you'll come home fully ready to whip out professional, stable, scalable, apps in record time.

Try the sample app. Buy the Hentzenwerk book on VFE. Check out the posts on F1tech's support forum to see what kind of issues people are having. I have not used Mere Mortals myself (the only other one I would consider, knowing what I know now), but what finally won me over was the significant support system VFE has. I'm convinced VFE's here to stay and will be promptly and consistently updated and enhanced.

The only complaint I've had with VFE is that the marketing doesn't do the product justice. :)

Give me a hollar if you have any other questions.



>Dan,
>
>I just got a copy of VFE (along with the Mere Mortals framework) to evaluate. How do you like it? I've heard of performance issues. Have you had any problems? What's the learning curve like?
>
>Thanks for your input.
>
>John