>We are considering purchasing SDT and I would like to know if it is still supported to the same extent it always has been, if anyone out there is using it any pros and cons, and also if there are any comparable products. If we purchase it, we will purchase 1 license per developer of course and I will need to write up a justification for the purchase (necessity, benefits, cost, why we chose it over other comparable tools, etc).

Hi, Tracy-

Doug is da bomb. <s> I have to add my Yea vote to the others. There are no cons with the product, IMO, except that I didn't buy it many years before I finally did. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. I wish I had a hard ROI for you but I know for sure that the cost of the product has been repaid many times over in the years I've used it. I couldn't have possibly written the update code for even one project the cost I paid for the product and I've used it for 5 projects for many iterations each. I don't have to ever ship data, which simplifies distribution.

I even use it for a project for which another developer owns the data. It is just a help to document and to navigate the tables and fields.

The update functions can be insinuated into your code seamlessly, however it makes the most sense, so you could have it run and check structurs from a menu, on startup, or, say, if there's ever a structure-related error.

It handles index updates as well as structure updates and it has other powerful tools like the field repository another mentioned, as well as other meta data.

Finally, there is a great documentation tool, and you can output in HTML if you like.

There has only been one bug I found in an early version and Doug helped me track it down, told me how to fix in the source code so I wouldn't be hampered (you get the source code) and he was unfailingly professional.

In short, if I can provide products to my clients that are half as robust, useful, and straightforward to use as SDT, I'd be happy.