John,

>At least one of the DoomDrummers manages to sneak it into every second message that his commercial offering will soon be there for dotNET, even though as far as I can tell dotNET offers much of it already in native classes.

A good framework will abstract out much of the messy, complicated code that must be written in many cases to properly handle some of the shortcomings of the native .NET "framework" (collection of classes). For example, ASP.NET does not naturally handle two-way data-binding, and Kevin's new Mere Mortals framework fills in that gap very nicely. That's just one example of many, not to mention the advantages of true Framework classes that wrap native .NET functionality into a comprehensive system designed for RAD development and promoting good OOP design principles.

>I am one of the "waiting for frameworks to firm up" brigade but if one has not chosen a framework and wants to do some dotNET work, there is little harm in (or alternative to?) digging in with a book like ".NET for VFP Developers" and getting an overview of raw classes and structure, especially when some of those frameworks have so many zeroes in the price.

The book you mention is a good resource, and I also highly recommend that anyone interested in what a commercial Framework can add to .NET go immediately and download the Mere Mortals Developer's Guide, which explains the MM.NET design philosophy and shows great examples of good programming practices -- information that is very scarce, even in the best publications and websites. I downloaded just to take a quick look today, and found myself captivated by the excellent writing and extremely practical info included. Just follow the links at www.oakleafsd.com.

Disclaimer: I have no commercial interest in this particular product and do not benefit from sales of it in any way. I simply find the free developer's guide to be an excellent resource that can help us learn the new stuff.