>>I also wonder why it is that I don't know any Visual ProMatrix users from the various user groups I have attended? Do they separate themselves from the FoxPro community? If so, why?
>
>I wondered the same thing. Yes, ProMatrix users to separate themselves. They even have there own News Server so you don't have to use the microsoft one. As I said before I've used both ProMatrix & MaxFrame. What I found was the ProMatrix runs 'on top' of VFP - so to speak. Without going into a bunch of detail here, my problems with ProMatrix where that 1) Not flexable at all, and 2) It doesnt even use the VFP DBC! and 3) It prevents you from using many of VFP features. It is these last 2 reasons whey I think they've separated themsevles. Once a ProMatrix user started asking questions out here it would become obvious that their application was simply designed poorly. As for WHY ProMatrix has these issues - I think that the author (or authors) of the thing were really more 2.6 foxpro people - they didnt grasp the concept of DBC and views - and therefor left them out....and looking a ProMatrix to fix that problem is a complete re-write. Heck you can't even use Source Safe with
>it unless you blow more $ on some stupid program they sell you so you can.
>How about most ProMatrix users are hobbiest, not professionals - that would be more fitting. I think ProMatrix's idea to seperate themselves was a marketing decision. Their product will draw too much critism from the rest of the VFP community, and in the interest of their own survival this is how they handled it. Last time I checked you couldn't even log on to their news-server without buying there product....again I belive this to be part of their survival tacktics.
>Now with that being said I hope I haven't offended anyone.

Hi Victor,

both Doug Hennig and Jim Booth have written about the desirability of building your own data engine. It just happens that VPM chose that route a couple of years before they wrote their stuff (Jim in his book, Doug in I think a Foxtalk article).

What that has allowed us (VPM developers) to do is to extend the data engine as needed, making it much more functional.

VPM's decision to separate itself was, in my opinion, a result of Joe Lawson's personality, more than anything else. Which is a real shame, as I think it has hindered VPM's acceptance. Joe describes it as a business decision, but to those of us who have been in the Fox community for a long time (12/90 in my case), that answer rings very hollow. It takes a community to raise a product. <s>

For me, using a combination of xCase, xCase2VPM (a tool I wrote that extends xCase information and moves it to VPM -- disclaimer, I see the tool through ProMatrix), VPM, and the subclasses of VPM in our library, it is an incredibly productive tool. On a large project now underway for about two months, we are working with 292 tables, all accessed through views that can transparently switch to client-server. With 3 FTE developers, we are on schedule (tight, but on schedule) for completion by August 1st -- we'd better, as my company's bonus of 1/6 of the contract depends on that. <s> I value the contributions made by all the frameworks, and I can't imagine this kind of productivity in any other environment.

So, while I disagree with Joe's decisions very often, and have complained to him on more than one occasion about how Max, who is not a developer, should not be allowed to talk with customers, I judge the product on the basis of it's productivity. And it is that.

Hank Fay