>>I'm proposing to develop an application in Visual Fox 5.0 and my client says they're adopting the entire Microsoft Office suite and why can't I do the app in Access???
>>
>>I NEED AMMO!!!
>>Please contribute any good technical reasons why VFox would be preferred over Access...
>>
>>Thanx a bunch!
>>
>>P.S. One concern (the usual) was, "Microsoft probably won't be going forward with VFox anyway..."
>>
>>
>>HELP!
>
>Consider the following:
>
>Microsoft Office is for users.
>Microsoft Visual Studio is for application development.
>
>Microsoft Access is part of Office
>Microsoft Visual FoxPro is part of Visual Studio.
>
>'nuff said.

Additional arguments:
1) VFP distribution is more robust than Access.
2) Note the number of professional applications that have been written in each.
VFP is a clear winner here.
3) If the app is a simple one, Access development will be faster.
4) Access has no classes. It is not an object oriented language.
5) The aftermarket for VFP is wider.
6) If performance is an issue, VFP is the winner by a long shot.

In summary, Access is basically (g) an end-user tool, albeit a powerful one.
VFP is a programmer tool. As an example, tinkering under the covers of a master-detail form is nearly impossible in Access, whereas it is a breeze in
VFP. The Access database uses variable length records. This is fine for small data files, but as the number of records grows, navigation becomes slower. In VFP, getting to a given record is done by simply multiplying the record number times the record length and adding the number of bytes taken up by the header. In Access, getting to a specific record is not possible in this way. The design philosophy differences are dramatic and not to be underrated. The two products feel quite different. Access is very intuitive and easy to use at first. But as the application becomes more complex, the programmer ends up fighting with Access. It wants to do things one way and the programmer needs to do it a different way. In VFP, there is almost nothing that cannot be accomplished. This is simply not true in Access. Don't let end-users dictate programming language choices to you. If they insist, you will be working for a client (boss?) who should not be making those types of decisions, and you will be very unhappy (poor/broke/sued/worse).