>>Walter,
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>>>Sure is that VFP is cheaper, a lot easier to install and maintain than SQL. If you don't have a high need for securing data and endurability of data then SQL might not be the most logical choice.
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>>I don't totally agree that SQL is harder to maintain than VFP. IMO, it's a on the contrary whether small or large volume of data. VFP Data Engine while it is powerful is somewhat a problem when it comes to maintenance. Not to do anything in its Indexes in a month will make your system suffer.
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>Rebalancing indexes is periodically needed to optimize performance indeed. However, With surrogate incrementing keys this more of a problem that with random generated, or mannually entered intelligent keys because balancing indexes would automaticly occur. This is also needed in other DBMSs, however most provide automatic balancing and/or clustered indexes. In most systems I develop a reindexing routine is a suitable solution.

If your system is running 24 hours a day 7 days a week, you need 2 to 3 hours interruption (or longer depending on the volume of data). I think that's a common problem with ISAM databases.

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>>Aside from its FPT w/c vulnerable to corruption. It is not stable in handling binary data.
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>I never encoutered problems with this. AFAIK this is not a very common problem. There a lot of potential problem causing corruption, however you can do a lot to minimize the occurance of such problems. Using data buffering solved almost all data curruption problems I ever encountered. I've got about 100 systems with a few thousand users in the field for about three years now. Until today there has not been a single report of curruption of any kind in the database.

We have a Finger Scanning VFP application and it gives us headache because the FPT is regularly being corrupted eventhough there is no technical pc problem.

>Note that my statement was made on DMBSs like Oracle, SQL-server and MSDE, not on SQL-server specificly nor any of its versions. Personally I've had some headaches with MSDE. Suddenly, the database engine crashed and could not start up anymore. I tried reinstalling, examined the installation log, looked at MSDN etc, called the helpdesk, but could not solve the problem. Finally I had to reinstall Windows in order to make it work again. The conclusion I drew was that some dependency files must have been the problem.

>One question tough, why is the SQL-server version as twice as expensive as the VFP version? Only because of purchasing SQL and licences or is there another factor?

Merely because SQL Server is highly respected DB and it adds value to our application. With Oracle you need high caliber DB Admin but with SQL Server, the developer is enough as long as he knows what he's doing.

>>Now if you want to earn a living through Retainer's FEE, then stick to VFP/VFP combination.

VFP DB needs regular maintenance and no matter how complete your app is e.g. reindexing and packing tools, corruption is always imminent because of technical problems beyond the developer's control. And so, there must be a Monthly or Yearly Retainer's Fee which we do. Now, we would rather choose to have a stable app with stable DB than to have a retaineer's fee at all. Really, it's uncomfortable to be in the site doing file fixing at around 3 A.M.