>>>>The need to migrate our designs has been advised fro quite a while now; to take advantage of the new functionality in VFP from your apps, you have to reengineer away from monolithic ISAM-type operations.
>>>
>>>I think what's needed is some recommendation on some good books on C/S design. I know I found "Inside SQL Server 7.0" quite helpful in this regard, but I do think it doesn't go far enough in the design principles.
>>>
>>>You got recommendations?
>>
>>How about "Client/Server Apps with VFP and SQL Server" (Urwiler, DeWitt, Levy, Koorhan) from Hentzenwerke
>
>Doh! How could I forget that one? Probably because I haven't read it.< s > Seriously, I was thinking in a more generalized fashion, but since it undoubtedly deals with many of the differences between ISAM access and set based access, it's probably a great choice.

It's a great resource coming from a VFP perspective; I also learned a considerable amount about the C/S environment exploring the PD CodeBook framework and Visual MaxFrame, and from taking to others who've worked with it, the Mere Mortals environment derived from CodeBook is also tremendous at addressing the issues of C/S development because of its basic n-tier orientation. I've heard good things from other developers using VFE, but haven't tried it myself or run into any examples of apps built from it whose code I've seen.

Since MSDE is free, and being a Universal Subscription recipient, you also have SQL Server Developer's Edition at your fingers, too, try to build a test app around it and play, and there's a broad direct correspondence between the MSDE, and an obvious direct correspondence between SQL Server and the Developer Edition.

If you want to look at the math behind set theory or books on set operations in the relational environment, I can suggest some academic texts as well.