>Thank you for the detailed response. Abstracting the data access into classes definitely seems like the best way to go. At this point, we are just going to evaluate whether or not we want to go down this road or possibly jump on Jim's bandwagon and ditch VFP's data engine entirely.. Decisions decisions.. Regardless, though, I do like the idea of the data classes.

Well if you don't want to ditch VFP's data engine my data classes work with VFP, SQL Server and Oracle. Currently they’re not a separate product but part of the entire framework that Info Digger is built on. Extensive examples and help documentation are being created but you can download Info Digger now.

A benefit my data and business classes provide is a lookup class. The lookup class is an application-level object designed to minimize repetitive backend queries and network traffic by acting as a data manager for all comboboxes. Info Digger is designed to manage many open forms and interfaces. IMP, the best Visual FoxPro top-level interface I've seen. All these open interfaces can lead to dozens of comboboxes instantiated at anytime. Rather than each combo box requiring it's own data cursor to populate it's list, comboboxes communicate with the Lookup object for data. The lookup object manages backend queries and client-side cursors for the entire application session. So, if you open the customer interface five times during the application session the customer lookup is only retrieved from the backend once. Of coarse you can at anytime manually query the interface that will query the customer lookup. There are so many benefits with this framework for developers looking for flexibility over wizards. The framework simply hosts interface container template classes. This interface class contains methods like LoadData, LoadInterface, RequeryData, AddRecord, DeleteRecord, SaveData, RevertData, RefreshInterface. You can opt to use the framework data and business classes or write your own code in these methods to handle data yourself.

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>You going to Ft Lauderdale? I'm flying down on Sat out of Newark.
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Not going to Ft Lauderdale. I am working on an “Application Service” for the Northwind SQL Server database for Info Digger that should be ready by the time you get back. An “Application Service” is a separate executable of interfaces, business objects and a lookup object that makeup an application. Info Digger can manage multiple Application Services. The Application Service executable, Visual FoxPro project, all source code and service database will be available to anyone interested in using Info Digger to build VFP, SQL Server or Oracle applications. It demonstrates just how little code is required and how fast applications can be built with Info Digger. If you’re interested, contact me when you’re back and I’ll send you everything you need to build your own interfaces for Info Digger.