>First, I'm not against NET, from what I saw is cool stuf there :-)

Well, I'm not exactly "FOR" .NET either :) I'm trying to educate myself and pass on some of my observations in the process.

>What I believe is that is much easy, NOW, to design and develop high performance and flexible database applications using VFP than using NET.

I agree; but the UI's that one can build in VFP are starting to look stale compared to "native" NET GUI's.

The NET object model is a lot richer: NET has "hundreds" of classes compared to the 30 so "base" VFP classes. At some point (at least for me), I need to look at VB or a C/C++ DLL when I want to extend my VFP app; this is rarely the case with .NET ... you can pretty well accomplish everything in the .NET language of your choice.

>In VFP help, topics:
>"Client/Server Design for High Performance"
>"Data Location on the Optimal Platform"
>"Optimizing Access to Remote Data"
>
>Is something like described in these topics possible in NET now?

There are numerous white papers available. There are also some very sophisticated n-tier .NET sample apps that one can run and analyze; a lot more sophisticated than the VFP "Tastrade" app.

As with anything, one still has to use their head when building efficient apps. As a development platform, I would say that .NET is where VFP 5.0+ was (any performance problems will probably get ironed out).

The open-source NET project is also making a lot of progress now and cannot be ignored, particularly if you want to get in on the Unix/Linux market.

Don't forget, the way things are going, .NET will run on Windows AND Linux ... as opposed to where WINE and VFP may be heading.