Good morning Walter;

I have built data driven applications and they are a dream to work with. As long as there is a market we have no problem with VFP being used as a productive tool. It is my favorite tool when it comes to creating serious applications quickly and economically.

The reality can be that Microsoft drives many potential clients towards the latest technology. We end up having to follow – like a bull being led by his nose. Forget performance and cost factors. At least that has been my reality for the last four years. I use VFP at home for my own clients but not at work where it is not allowed. You have to survive. :)

Tom



>Hi thomas,
>
>Lots of resources in my project are tables. For example all menuitems are tables compiled into the executable. All security objects, all fixed lookup tables, all other application specific meta data are included in the executable.
>
>You simply cannot use something like that in .NET. The future of large application development is data driven designs. Without a fast local data engine you're not able to build something like that. In this light there is nowhere to go with .NET if it does not include a fast local data engine.
>
>Using something external like MSDE is only a klugy way of bypassing the problem. It's too slow and though its excellent at processing set oriented commands is not rich enough to handle record oriented DML commands. IOW as things are now, it's a real pain. Large projects done in .NET will like not maintainable because of the lack of efficiently handle local data.
>
>Now Microsoft is not positioning .NET for these kind of projects. They saw this gap and bought Navision Financials which indeed has such blazingly fast and right data engine. I suspect that MS will rebuild this ERM software so that it meets up the ms GUI standard (which was kind of poor) and will succeed in filling this gap.
>
>Walter,
>
>
>
>>>>As long as .NET does not offer use a fast set and record oriented local data engine to process results from SQL-server, and process internal META data, .NET has nothing to offer for a real profesional VFP developer.
>>>>
>>>>Many people jumping .NET seem to forget this.....
>>>>
>>>
>>>Hi Walter. I must say this is what holds me back. I have bought the .Net books, the courseware, VS.Net, and played around with it (some :). But without a local data engine....
>>>
>>>Everything I do at the moment requires local database functionality and an SQL style solution just adds complexity for me - not simplicity, not to mention the licensing costs.
>>>
>>>My 2.1c worth (inflation).
>>
>>Jos;
>>
>>How about using MSDE on the local machine and server as well, when you have a need for this approach, and SQL Server also when needed?
>>
>>Tom