I prefer to bind the form’s object to the table source or data environment and use optimistic table buffering. This eliminates the complexity of using a middle tier odbc or ole db provider and allows the use of indexes, which are faster and more versatile than SQL fetches to a backend table. When you use table buffering the database is only tied up for a fraction of a second when a button is clicked initiating a table update. Also, you can use the base classes supplied with VFP saving time and aggravation of finding example of how to connect to various third party backends. It also makes better use of VFP’s rushmore technology which is super fast.

Unless you expect to eventually be working with very large data sets or you have sensitive security issues, you can save a lot of complexity and money by using the traditional VFP method to access your data. If you have a need to access the data from outside the local network, like from a remote location over modem, then you would need to use something else like remote views. Otherwise, I would use the standard method of binding the form objects to the table.

Leland