Arnica products support web services in both ways (i.e. as both client and server): they can call other web services and cab be invoked as web services. The key is here is that they all use HTTP as communication protocol and send data as XML.

Interoperability with .NET is one of the strategic issue as well, and was planned in advance. Before .NET Arnica products were invoked via ASP proxy. When .NET was released we started work on integration: ASP.NET became an integral part of our framework and we are running several beta sites from ASPX. In a few days Arnica will release official versions of .NET-enabled builds for most of Arnica web portal platform products. Also, in early 2003 we will introduce C# scripting for Arnica products, runnable by .NET framework. So, in effect you get a choice of ASPX or ASP entry points, C# or VFP scripting, and so on.

However, I must say that we do not consider a C# as a substitute for VFP. C# is like Java - it is an excellent general-purpose language, but it is not a data driven language. You would have to write 10 lines of C# + ADO.NET code, while VFP does the same in just a couple of lines of code and much much faster. A clear advantage of C# is a potential ability to process huge amount of simultaneous multiple requests with little dependency on data, because of its better threading model. An advantage of VFP is to process data-driven requests. So, you have a Ferrari and 4x4, and use them accordingly but keep them on the same parking lot.

Thus, we are not taking extreme position, i.e. we are NOT trying to say: migrate from VFP to C#, but rather advise to make more intelligent position – use both of them. VFP is great, C# is great, and their combination is unbeatable! Do not substitute one with another.

Arnica WebFramework automates many XML-related tasks, and it is very easy to use in programming to create XML-enables applications. The WebReport and FormServer also support XML and can easily communicate one with another by sending XML data with requests.