I am just beginning to look into using VFP to build distributed applications. I have found software to enabled me to execute the GET/POST calls from VFP and I have an engine on the server side to deal with the other end of things. That stuff works and is pretty stable.

My concern lies in the area of implementing some of the standard operations that a user would expect to use in a normal application. For example ... Adding a new record: That seems rather simple ... check for duplication and if none, add it to the database. Editing Records: That seems more complicated. Do I put some sort of FLAG in the record to indicated that it is being edited and only allow 1 editor on the record ? This seems ok. However, what if the editor drops dead and never comes back to the server? I suppose I could come up with some sort of timing routine to open the record up again after a given period but that seems rather clunky ...

I would be interested in hearing from someone with firsthand experience with this. Ideas are fine but until actually implemented they fall short of a real-life solution.