A little background so you know my level of expertise to help you (help me) in answering the upcoming question; I'm one of those guys that is a "jack-of-all-trades" doing hardware, software, networks, user support and programming. I have used Foxpro since 1988 in various flavors at various levels of application complexity. I have done some development in VFP 5 & 6, all off it done with local free tables. On a scale of 1-10 I would rate my expertise at about 5.

Here's the issue (question) I'm struggling with; I am developing a robust application that will containing 20-30 tables, some of the tables will have 1,000,000+ records. It's been running in Fox 2.6 for years. I've been hired to re-write it in VFP. Other than having the "Windows" look, the big difference in the new app will be a need to work with either local data or remote (SQL Server, Oracle) data (of which I have no experience with). It could change from installation to installation - some would use local and some would use back-end databases.

I have a window of about 6 months to do this. I'm considering using a framework to speed up development and give me tools (or insight) into attaching to remote data, provide security - all the things most every app needs. I do my have my own base classes, but they're fairly simple.

Please note: though I've mention back-end data as main reason for considering a framework, it's really the whole development package that I will need - forms, grids, data navigation, data validation, etc.

Questions are;
1.) Will my learning curve be too lengthy if I use a framework?
2.) Are frameworks slow?
3.) Which of the frameworks out there do you like or dislike and why?

If you don't mind, please list the frameworks you have had experience with. If you work for, or represent a framework manufacturer, please note that in your reply.

Thanks,
Bill