>>Hello all,
>>My question: Since VFP handles its native DBF structure so well and with such speed, are there any plans by Microsoft to break the 2GB size limit of DBFs? ODBC and Oracle or SQL still seem way too slow. Any thoughts?
>>
>>Randy W Fogg
>>DB³ Inc.


It is too bad we will never see an actual shoot out as to performance with VFP vs SQL or even Oracle, because both have strict license limitations that forbid disclosure of performance data. And that makes Oracle's $1 million reward so much hype. And makes much of the rest of the arguments more like religion.

As it is, I know that each developer has, over time, developed a trick here and a trick there that works well in his/her own particular case, as I have. Some of you have done enough of them to write books about them, and thus taught your tricks to me. Some if them , I may have selfishly improved upon, others work just fine for me. In the case of the "normal" sized database applications I have developed, it probably does not make a great deal of difference with optimization of the various lookups. but i the larger ones, Primary indexes, candidate indexes, a wide range of join conditions that can be set and released almost at will, SEEK() and INDEXSEEK() are some of my favorite functions in locating a particular record or sequence of records, and I have exploited them to the fullest when wanting to impress a client. Now that I am getting into the SQL based databases, I can see that they work, and have a reasonably common language with which to comunicate with them. There are differences, mainly in data types and storage. The VFP front end, and auto translation in syntax (both ways) makes it even easier to develop a user friendly interface to a sometimes unfriendly data.

I respect all of the experienced developers on here and find your comments useful and welcome, even when they differ from mine. As we all know there is code that will make your app work, and then there is code that works for you. Not everyone codes the same way, and VFP accomodates just about all of them.

just a rant - thanks for your patience.