Visual FoxPro & SQL 7.0

[Jeffrey]

We are starting a company that will focus on money management and electronic
bill payments.

I have been told by several VFPro developers that it is necessary for our
VFPro developers to begin there development with the SQL database (client/server
relationship)rather than creating code in conjunction with DBF (FoxPro Databases).
Their reasoning is that if record sizes become to large - in other words
the company were to grow rather quickly - that the code would have to be
rewritten for SQL 7.0 if a switch were to take place.

I have also been told that VFPro is not the ideal tool for such a company.

If you will, could you give me your feedback on this issue and obstacles
you would forsee in the future if the company were built in the beginning
from FoxPro Databases and a switch were to take place in the future to SQL
7.0.

Thank You!

[Nancy Folsom \(MS FoxPro MVP\)]

"Jeffrey " <ossenberg@juno.com> wrote in message
news:38d83005@news.devx.com...

> I have been told by several VFPro developers that it is necessary for our
> VFPro developers to begin there development with the SQL database
(client/server
> relationship)rather than creating code in conjunction with DBF (FoxPro
Databases).
> Their reasoning is that if record sizes become to large - in other words
> the company were to grow rather quickly - that the code would have to be
> rewritten for SQL 7.0 if a switch were to take place.
>
> I have also been told that VFPro is not the ideal tool for such a company.
>
> If you will, could you give me your feedback on this issue and obstacles
> you would forsee in the future if the company were built in the beginning
> from FoxPro Databases and a switch were to take place in the future to SQL
> 7.0.
>

FWIW, VFP does upsize to SQL-server. Another choice would be for you to use
MSDE as your data engine, because that would be a seamless (?) upsize to
SQL-Server. However, MSDE is optimized for only 5 users, so is rather more
limited.

VFP as a backend can (and does <s>) handle files up to 2 gigs in size. Note
that that is per file, not counting CDXs. So the entire database can be many
times that size. In addition, it supports hundreds of users with no
addition connection licensing.

Downside is VFP doesn't handle data security like SQL-Server or Oracle give
you. (I'm not familiar with MSDE's security.)

I'm sure others will chime in with their comments and thoughts. One website
you might want to take a look at is Beth Massi's.
http://members.home.net/bmassi/

[G. Allen]

VFP is certainly a great choice for such an application. Use a 3-tier
architecture for your design. So choosing later to upsize the database to
SQL Server, etc, will not be a major task.

The VFP database is solid and can handle millions of records, but as with
any shared set of files over a network you can get possible data corruption
if you get an improperly terminated session (system crash), etc., while
files are being written to disk.

A back-end database server protects the database from these types of things
plus gives you higher security. I have no problem using VFP tables (actually
there are several strong advantages to using native VFP tables in your app)
but I ensure that I have some built-in tools (like SDT) to recover from the
rare mishap.

--
George
G.A Technologies
Edmonton, AB,Canada
www.ga-tech.com



Jeffrey <ossenberg@juno.com> wrote in message news:38d83005@news.devx.com...
>
> We are starting a company that will focus on money management and
electronic
> bill payments.
>
> I have been told by several VFPro developers that it is necessary for our
> VFPro developers to begin there development with the SQL database
(client/server
> relationship)rather than creating code in conjunction with DBF (FoxPro
Databases).
> Their reasoning is that if record sizes become to large - in other words
> the company were to grow rather quickly - that the code would have to be
> rewritten for SQL 7.0 if a switch were to take place.
>
> I have also been told that VFPro is not the ideal tool for such a company.
>
> If you will, could you give me your feedback on this issue and obstacles
> you would forsee in the future if the company were built in the beginning
> from FoxPro Databases and a switch were to take place in the future to SQL
> 7.0.
>
> Thank You!