Kevin,
If you queried a backend rather than a local repository, you would end up with (presumably) smaller subsets rather than every single record. If (for example) your total volume was 250,000 records with lots of fat fields, you could expect the C# version to be slowing right down if you put all that into memory. At which point it would become a necessity to have the data either in a local "disk" repository, or in a backend server table.
We have been somewhat spoiled in VFP, never considering whether a local cursor is in memory or spanned to disk: it just works. Uncritically translating that behavior to dotNET would be just as great a mistake as uncritically translating SP "rules" into VFP from other environments. Which is why your example has been great, stimulating discussion and helping people think about all this. Thanks again.
Regards
j.R
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
