>Yes, you did miss the point. The point is it's much easier to edit a text file using a good editor than modifying records in a table.

I don't think I missed the point. The point of this (I thought) was for two-way programming. You and some others seem to feel that the only way to do this is to have text file based source files. I disagree. Two way programming simply means a singular source file and if you change somrthing within the IDE (e.g. visual designer) then it is reflected in the source. If you change the source directly, it is reflected the next time you bring it up in the designer.

That can be done using the VCX/SCX/MNX directly as tables. The table is the basis for VFP/FoxPro source files. As I said before, I believe this is so because VFP has the routines in place to parse these files. Nothing new had to written/integrated into the VFP codebase to handle this. The saying "Why reinvent the wheel" comes to mind. The Fox team had the routines to parse DBFs. They simply needed wrappers to these libraries for the exact structures of the SCX/VCX/MNX files.

Now if you want to change the premise entirely and say "I would rather have TXT based source files" then that would be a different discussion. There are benefits to having txt based source files (you mention one below); however, don't link the issue of two-way programming with the source files having to be text based because that is not correct.

>Furthermore, it wouild be much easier to do a Diff using Source Code Version Control software.

I agree this would be easier.

Regards.