I suspected this, I rarely buy just one tool, book, or anything else along those lines. This is a corporate thingie, I'm the in house developer by default, with a short history in VFP. So I feel like to get this one project done and my employer satisfied, the users content and a calmer life for myself, I would just buy one now and others later. Thank you so much for the feedback.

>>> I wanted people to take sides, let me know what kind of apps they build, why the framework they chose works for them. Thanks for the feedback.
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>Hi Matt,
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>Just to jump in here with some free advice... I've been around a long while, and one thing that strikes me is the incredible value offered by *all* the VFP frameworks out there.
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>I can unequivocally say there isn't a bad one out there. They are all different, and they all come with source code and they are all supported by fine people and a great community of peers.
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>So here's my advice: Don't pick one. Pick two or three. Just buy them outright. You'll find that, since source is included, what you'll get is several well documented apporaches to solving a variety of problems, and several complementary function libraries that you can combine into your own environment.
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>With Maxframe, FoxExpress, Mere Mortals, and Codemine (and the others) you get excellent workaday frameworks that can be extended and applied to almost any solution. There isn't a lemon in the bunch.
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>With Web Connect you get everything you need to develop web apps.
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>With Codebook you get a well tested and elegant architecture.
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>With FoxFire you get a turnkey reporting engine that works with them all.
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>With Stonefield you get top-notch database support tools that are universally usable.
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>The key to them all is not what you get in the box, but how you extend and apply them to suit your today's problem. By purchasing several at the outset, you set yourself up for the next and subsequent applications you'll be writing later this year, next year, and thereafter.
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>To me this is the racer's edge. It's a very worthwhile investment. I've met hundreds of developers over the years and a majority of them know and use one framework, as if formed by a single $400 decisison made years ago. But the best developers I've met invariably possess a collection of tools in their arsenal. They're ready for anything.
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>So in other words, if the first Framework purchase gives you 100 "utils" of value, what I'm saying is the second purchase delivers maybe 85 "utils", and the third maybe 70 "utils". It's not like choosing between two spreadsheet products, say Excel vs Lotus 123. Frameworks are not mutually exclusive. They are significantly more complimentary than most tend to believe.
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>In the end you'll probably use one framework to the exclusion of others; that's perfectly normal. In that case the others serve as resources that you can tap to extend the framework you end up using. That's the beauty of it: you can fold-in most of the strengths of several frameworks into your work. That's killer.
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>And certainly, as others have said, the apps you will build will eventually be nothing like the sample application in the framework. The key concept here is extensibility. In this area all VFP frameworks are extensible, some more than others, but that depends more on the direction of the extension and your own skills than on the base platform itself.
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>**--** Steve (Who has spent a small fortune on tools and subscriptions and doesn't regret a single dime).