Hi Jeff,

there are two points of view in the SQL world. One of the upcoming ones is that you should use Data Shaping: which amounts to using successive views. VFP does this very well, in fact: we regularly design a series of Views in xCase, having each view build on what is in the previous view (and including all the fields from the previous view, typically). xCase does all the hard work; and when you open the top view, all the others open automatically, all the way down. Very cool. Of course, to refresh them you have either to manually requery from the bottom up; or close all but the top, and then requery() the top view.

For Web applications, breaking things down into smaller steps is often important, because it frees the processor to handle other requests between the successive steps, so one user doesn't hog the machine (yeah, multi-threading is possible in .NET; it's just not done often).

Finally, there is the debate about where the work should be done: on the Server (run Stored Procedures) or on the client. The Server marketing people make a big deal about the scalability of the server, of course. But many of the gurus I've read say to distribute the work to the client so you don't bog down the server.

Related to that: read a real-life case study of a firm that created a .NET server-side asp.net application: they topped out at 25 users per server, pegging the server at 100% CPU Utilization. So much for putting everything on the server.

So, your colleague is correct; but probably wrong. <s>

Hank

>Thanks for your reply.
>
>Let's assume for the moment that my colleague is correct, and that the limitation exists (keep in mind I haven't yet seen his code, but I will soon).
>
>In my defense of VFP against his claims of its so-called 'weakness' in this regard, my gut feeling is that the simple fact that he's trying to do such a thing may indicate inefficient coding. I'll know more, of course, when I see what he's got.
>
>Would you tend to agree with that, then, or rather would you posit that it's a legitimate shortcoming that needs to be improved in the product?