A particularly tedious situation is to create a datagrid and populate the appropriate properties there, at least in the demonstrations/articles I've been exposed to.

In my grid subclass, I have a function that receives a collection (containing column/heading names, whether the column should be text, checkbox, pulldown, conditional coloring expressions, etc.) The function does all the tedious 'dirty-work' you described.

So one productivity function, one less 'tedious' task.

On the flip side, you can natively sort grid columns in .NET (a common user request), and in VFP one must write something generic to achieve the same goal.

Now, I'm a fair guy...the VFP 'workaround' is perfectly valid...however, a few others on this forum seem determined to rip another product's capabilities because you have to write some code to accomplish a particular task. Selective complacency, if you ask me...

I haven't seen the ability to create a "quick report" like I can do in VFP.

I believe this capability exists in CR.NET, though I've never had the need to use it.

I think many people have stated that you cannot be near as productive with .Net as you can be with VFP.

I have a total of 4 .NET apps. Two were new apps, two were conversions from VFP. Out of that work and the learning curve came a decent-sized set of toolkit functions I've put together (that I continue to tweak). At this point, if I were to hypothetically start a new app from scratch and do it both in VFP and .NET, the difference in time would likely be marginal at best.

...the books and papers that cover VFP to .Net conversion do not address this (ie, how to be as productive), which is pretty key to sealing the deal for many.<.i>

I'll grant you that most books on .NET are a bit weak, and the learning curve is considerable. Learning .NET reminded me of learning Turbo C in the late '80's - you need to work with it on a regular basis to 'get it'.

The amount of practical material now is higher than it was a year or two ago. ".NET for VFP Developers" by Kevin McNeish is a very good book. The VFP ToolKit is a decent library. Go check out the messages on GotDotNet...a ton of practical solutions up there. And also, scan through the solutions provided on the .NET forum by folks like Kevin McNeish and Cathi Gero and Bonnie Berent - the content of those two alone covers many practical solutions.

Kevin