Hi Kevin,

>
>Yes, I myself am a beginner in this area, and I'm not the only one in the team who is.
>
>This is the requirement at the moment:
>
>3 VFP analyst/programmers, 1 programmer, 1 analyst
>
>a) Develop a large, complex 3-tier system in VB.Net+SQL Server
>b) A/P's to learn VB.Net
>c) A/P's to learn SQL Server
>d) 1 analyst and 2 A/P's to learn UML too
>e) All to get heads around OOP
>f) All to get heads around 3-tier
>
>Big requirement eh? And this is the main worry, not to mention the fact it's a system that the department depends on, day-in-day-out.
>

Are you kidding? Piece o' cake. <g> Seriously though, I didn't realize you would be using .NET. That kinda makes your decision easier, though maybe not what you were expecting. .NET is pretty much n-Tier out of the box. That isn't to say that you can't put code in forms when they should be in business objects, but data is already accessed in an n-Tier fashion with ADO.NET.

Also, I'm afraid the quick data binding capabilities of VFP don't apply to .NET. To put it simply, IMO, data binding in .NET sucks donkeys <g>. You could open the DataSets in the form or in a business object, which may be more n-Tier. I don't see a real time savings either way.

If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Kevin McNeish's .NET book. In addition to basic .NET stuff, he talks about business objects and provides some small classes. Of course, there is also his Mere Mortals .NET Framework, for which he provides training. I've also heard ramblings about a wwBusiness class for .NET from Rick Strahl, but I don't know if it is available yet.