John,

Don't misunderstand me. I use SQL and Sybase along with VFP every day, I have been for the last 5 years. I haven't said anything in these posts that DBF is adequate for every database application.

>I don't buy into the notion that security is not an issue - rather - It is often an ignored issue.

Security can also be provided by the O/S and the application itself, but no security is not a defacto requirement for every database app.

>It is more flexible in that security is integrated and there is also an integrated tx log. Further, the engine scales from everything including a pda to a larger server. Also, sql server databases are easier to administer remotely. In terms of language, there is both sql and a procedural language -which together makes up t-sql. SQL Server's implementation of sql is far more flexible than what you will find in Fox.

And less flexible because they have to be administered, less flexible because they need to be on a database server machine instead of a file server machine.

>Regarding MSDE - you bring up a good point. But - you can get into the desktop version of SQL Server for about 800 bucks or so. In the grand scheme of things - that is not a lot of money.

The cost of SQL is significantly more than that for applications that truly warrant SQL, and the cost is more than just that of the SQL license.

>At some point in the near future, I would not be surprised to see a more robust version of MSDE integrated directly into the OS....

We aren't discussing where the O/S is or isn't going in the future. We are discussing two app development environments and two database environments for delivering solutions today.

>But - if you hitch your horse to the dbf-post - your options and opportunities are limited.

Hitching to any database or any development tool always has limitations, I'll go out on the limb and say that 10 years from now .Net will be obsoleted by some other technology.

>Dave - if dbf's were that compelling - not only would more companies use them - the would be considered a credible storage medium for mission critical data.

I wouldn't put MDB forward as a mission critical datastore either John. Mission critical seems to be a word reserved for the Enterprise version of SQL according to the document cited below.

>I think your categories are wrong. For one thing - you ignore MDB's. I don't know why you and others dismiss Access out of hand. I would also contend that where DBF's could satisfy a client's requirements - MSDE would be a good fit as well.

Just because I didn't include MDB in the categorization it is incorrect for you to jump to the conclusion that I "dismiss it out of hand", with that said, everything I've read says that DBF is more scalable than MDB in terms of database size and users. My experiences with using MDBs in the 10s of mb size, it is far more productive to pull the data out to DBF to work with it.

>Way too much is made over the supposed connection limit. When you get down to it - you only need a connection when you update and query data - that is it.

Connections are not established in 0 time. You would have to have an application that could withstand this performance penalty and not be able to use connection based #temp tables.

>FYI - MSDE can have more than 5 connections. The governor kicks in with processes. I believe Kevin McNeish posted something about simulating 250 simultaneous users on MSDE. Try creating 10 simultaneous connections on MSDE via ADO - you can do it....

So you are recommending a self throttling database server where the entire database size is limited to 2gb.

For anyone else following along there is a SQL Server version selection guide available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/planning/ChoosEd.doc

>If you say so... Tell you what..go to a prospective client who is considering .NET and try and sell dbf's... And, as time goes by, it is FAR from clear exactly how VFP will play in the ever evolving managed code sandbox.

It's doubtful that the client much cares if inside the app I'm using an ADO recordset or a VFP cursor, they just want to put data in and get it back out again.

>For one thing - a remote view is a VFP-specific wrapper around SPT. And in its implementation - is quite incomplete. Indeed - it is a data layer - but it is a VFP-specific implementation.

ADO is an ADO specific implementation

>>About the only people I know of that could begin to see .NET has being more flexible are those developers who eschewed the "VFP way" of doing things - in certain significant ways. Developers that used products like DataClas for example, or used SQL Pass Through, Components, etc - adopted n-tier development, actually used VB, etc - these developers would at least have a chance at giving .NET a fair evaluation.

>Why??? You dumped all the classes of applications in the world into 3 buckets? I just gave an opinion on which VFP developers I see as being more accepting of .NET today. It was not meant as a slam or an insult.

You classified a huge chunk of people as being incapable of making a fair evaluation.

I classified 3 types of database apps into a small/medium/large scaling that drives valid choices for the database technology to use for them.

There's a significant difference between the two sorts of classifications.

>I agree that "open mindedness" is the key. It just so happens that trait is more prevelant in some than others. That said, I have run into enough developers to provide an informed opinion. If you disagree - then do that. But please - don't tell me how I should go about making my opinion when quite frankley - there is nothing whatsoever that could reasonably construed as offensive. In effect - what you are saying here is that my opinion is OK to the extent that it does not offend anybody. Sorry Dave - I don't accept that as a predicate to express an opinion.

John I've never said how you can or can't express your opinion. I've never said that you should or shouldn't express your opinion. I really don't care whether your opinion agrees with mine or not. You have your opinions and I have mine.

In my opinion you and I are at cross purposes. I was hoping that a constructive comparison code base might come out of the thread. I see that that does not seem to be where you want to go. Frankly, I am on Thanksgiving holiday starting this afternoon so I have far better things to do than waste any more time here.

EOT as far as I'm concerned.