Hi George,

>Since I assume you're referring to me in the above, just a short response. My statement was that designing for a backend server as opposed to native tables requires a different design paradigm. Unfortunately, there are (apparently) some folks who don't realize this and try treat the backend in the same manner they did native tables. So, in short, I agree whole heartedly with the above.

But the real question is: Why is it a different design paradigm ? And what can we do to close the gap. I know this is difficult stuff that is difficult to solve. However, I'm convinced that it can be done a lot better than it is now. Personally I see much to gain on the subject of transparency, which is not neccesarely is the fastest option, but since when is SQL always the fastest option ?

For example why can a SQLEXEC function return a cursor, while the VFP language is not capable of doing this. Why can't we create remote views of VFP data (not using SQL server as middleware) ? I can hear you say XML, but that really the implementation glue that should be transparent and not visible to us developers IMO when it comes to returning data from VFP components.

Walter,