>The only thing that I want to know is about how people takes care of table
>buffering issue.

Table buffering depends on your choice of Automation server instancing.
But the bottom line is that you can't pass data over the server connection
directly, although you can use objects to handle the task for you.

I tend to not think an Automation server as part of the application
but as a server. In that respect I send a request and expect a response
that's totally independent of the previous request. In other words,
each request needs to be fully self-contained including establishing
its own state.


>Personally, I use the technique that is similar to Edward
>Pikman's, but I think that there is another (may be better) way to do this
>stuff...

I don't know what that is...

>question: is the OLE server too powerful for just a desktop application? I
>think that any thin client should be very fat in this case to handle OLE
>server too ;)))

I don't think so. An Automation server can be a great vehicle to get an
application onto a client desktop, especially if you need a different front
end with more/different capabilities than VFP can offer. This includes
VB, Delphi, BC++ Builder etc. or even Word, Excel etc.

There are other choices too though, that don't require Automation servers.
For example, I'm in the process of putting together a framework (and an
article) that allows you to run VFP applications over the Web without
using HTML. VFP on the client and VFP on the server using plain HTTP
sending files back and forth. To see this in action you can visit
my Web site www.west-wind.com/wwReader.asp and download a VFP
offline reader to my message board that uses plain HTTP to upload and
download messages.


>Well, let we assume that we have network with thin clients and one fat that
>should handle OLE server. In this case the network traffic will be too
>heavy... I should agree with you that in WWW-development case the OLE is
>only way...

I think Thin client technology has been highly overrated. Web applications
are not even close in usability as a standalone application and speed for
pure online is horrible. Technology that lets you use the distributed
architecture without requiring a full reworking of everything into HTML
is an option especially for Corporate applications that want the benefit
of the distributed environment. I think combining the new technology with
existing application technology is where it's at for now.

As far as OLE Automation goes: It's the best integrated technology for high
volume Web sites for sure, but the implementation from the OS and the
desktop applications these days is still a little shaky. I know that it took
me a lot of low level C++ programming and working around bugs in the OS and
VFP to create a reliable and scalable ISAPI/OLE framework with Web Connection.