>Hi Nancy:
>
>>>I think that Access is really being relegated to a position of being the >>design frontend for creating MSDE backends. Would you agree?
>
>I don't know anything about Access, but I see it staying as the MS Office database, not a tool for doing corporate work.
>
>>>But there's a lot of overhead, IMO.
>
>The MISIL and runtime compliation will extract a performance penalty. However, in return you get no more DLL Hell, greatly simplified plumbing and arcane constructs of Win32 and COM, consistant programming model (all services are provided by a common OOP model), multi-platform, type safety, much easier deployment, etc.
>
>>>but it's hard to pass up a tool that has everything you need in one place >>with no redistribution licensing costs
>
>VFP is a great tool for independent contractors.
>
>Regards,
>Charlie

Charlie;

I see a number of corporations in the San Francico Bay Area as well as the State of California using Access for critical applications. It takes a while before the poop hits the fan. A great deal of money IMO is wasted by using this tool for such purposes but it is a reality. Not a good business decision but it is a decision.

Some Access programmers I have met are like rock climbers - after a while no one wants to go near them.

Tom