John,

Have you done any extensive examinations of VFP-based products like Web Connection v VB-based products? Or maybe I should ask, Are their any good VB-based products out there that you have encountered that as as good or better than Web Connection?

I haven't seen any, not that I've looked thoroughly, as I've been so impressed with WC.

I like the notion of starting with VFP tables (not sure yet I want to use DBCs) and then as soon as things settle down adding the SQL backend.

Appreciate your thoughts...

>John
>
>I can help you on the ASP one, because we did a full comparison at the beginning of the year. I'm talking about database stuff here, not embedded dates or simple things like that.
>
>I can sum it up by saying "ASP starts strong, but can't maintain the pace". ASP forms are fairly easy to develop and deploy, but they simply don't scale. The problem seems to be in the server parsing which is far, far slower than VFP's. As a result, for an app that needs to scale you generally see the triumphant initial ASP version rewritten to use VB COM objects.
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>It is not true that VB cannot do web stuff effectively or that VB is necessarily slower. The problem is that VB lacks VFP's online parser- the textmerge facility. As a result, you end up hardcoding page appearances rather than using scripts as in WW or textmerging whole pages- sort of like using \\ and string concatenation to create the whole page.
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>This is why anybody who tells you that VB is a better choice for web than something like WW, cannot have tried them both. The difference is so clear that there is no prospect of a reasoned debate on the issue IMHO.
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>As for the issue of perceptions of VB vs VFP for web: I'm not sure what others have experienced, but by now I'm finding quite a few clients who are aware of the real costs of VB for web stuff. They seem more concerned about the backend so if/when the product "crashes and burns" or kills the budget they can seek an alternative.
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>IMHO that is a *great* reason for web developers to promote Oracle or SQL server. I tell my clients that using those backends, if my company's service or product is not up to scratch then they can dump us and bring somebody else in because the data is in an industry standard repository. IME it is the perception that using VFP means data is in the "mysterious" VFP data format that puts people off.
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>Regards
>
>JR