[quote]
Doug Zapp (04/11/2008)
What I would like to know is if anybody has experience in their search for an application framework, similar to what we are looking at, and why you chose StrataFrame (or conversely why you didn't choose another product) over any other tool?
This doesn't have to be specific to the products I mentioned. I would also like feedback as to how successful the product has made your development process.
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Hi Doug,
I think this would be a very personal decision. In my case, I spent great time reading a lot of materials from DevFoce (IdeaBlade) which I found to be a very solid framework and the way they handle the data is very unique. My understanding is that they target Enterprise developers shop and their framework will requre a more experience .NET developer to work with. There are many things I like about their approach and specially their form's builders which allow you to build a form pretty easily, but I think they lack in the Framework concept that I am used to in Visual FoxPro.
Then, I started reviewing SF, and found their approach easier to work with and understand specially with a little experience in .NET like I had. Also the framework as whole package provided more features for the kind of applications I develop (Form's templates, .NET controls subclasses, Messaging System, Multiligual Application support, Database Toolkit, a very impressive Connection Manager, and of course a great forum support).
In my VFP experience dealing with frameworks, I learned to respect them all, and then choose the one that best fit your needs/budgets, etc. and then start working with the framework, not against it. I remember some years ago when I was looking for a VFP framework to do the migration from FPD2.6 to VFP3/VFP5 and I tested about 5 frameworks, and bought 2 of them until I found the one I liked the most and stick with it for the last 10+ years and even got an MVP Live award title.
I am still very new to SF, but so far I am pretty happy with the results.
Edhy Rijo