Hi Patrick,

I agree with the others that VFP8 is your best option. Java is primarily used on the server side because of weaknesses in its GUI support. It was designed to provide full support for rich clients, but it just doesn't do a good job.

This is starting to change. I am not a Java developer, but I recently did some research on the subject. SWING is Sun's library of GUI controls. Performance has been a problem, but according to Sun, it is much improved with the latest 1.4 java runtime. SWING apps look the same on all platforms, and don't mimic the look & feel of the operating system. Some like this, others don't. SWT is a new set of controls under development in conjunction with the Eclipse project (www.eclipse.org). It basically provides wrappers around native controls, so the application looks and feels like a native app under Windows, Linux, or whatever. Performance and scalability varies between SWING and SWT depending on what you are doing, and Java developers are currently split on which is better.

So, obviously, Java still has issues with the GUI. After all these years, it still has yet to really prove itself for rich-client apps. This may change, but until it does, I would use something else.