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Former Great Plains Software Dexterity was designed as a core of Great PlainsDynamics: programming shell, DB independence layer, Integrated DevelopmentEnvironment (EDI)  however this design was performed back in earlier 1990th, so youmay imagine that software customization, development and programming goals, pitfallsand priorities shifted. In this small article we will try to orient you in how youshould consider your current Microsoft Dexterity modification upgrade, what are dexpluses and minuses from contemporary programmer standpoint: OOP or object oriented programming. If you look back to programming conceptdeveloping in 1980th and earlier 1990th  you will find that those days proceduralprogramming as prevailing and object oriented programming was already invented butnot yet implemented into  mass production . Dexterity is rather proceduralscripting language, which was written in C programming language in its turn. Lateron in late 1990th GPS tried to switch dex to OOP, when Great Plains decided todevelop from scratch its own Purchase Order module (and not to purchase andincorporate Intellisol Advanced Purchase Order Processing/Project Accounting),however it was rather too complicated and later on the idea lost its support Dexterity vs eConnect programming balancing. eConnect has certain level of OOP,however it has to deal with Dexterity restrictions on the database level (dexprimary keys, DEX_ROW_ID columns, etc). eConnect also lacks posting functionality  and this is understandable  GP design leaves batches posting to be in GP operatorhands Extender from eOne. This is another nice module, where you can abstract yourselffrom dex and at the same time introduce new functionality in GP. However if youplan to bring  life to your new custom screens  you should consider doing so viaDex sanscripts, attached to your Extender project. In other words  you are back inthe realm of Dexterity  either you use Dex IDE or Extender  the programming dutyis still there Integration. In our opinion dex is slowly abandoning the scene of GPintegrations, leaving the way to eConnect and earlier it was giving it up to pureSQL stored procedures Reporting. Great Plains ReportWriter is pure dex application and it has realproblems to provide flexibility to GP reporting. This is why we see the help fromCrystal Reports (was recommended up to GP version 8.0) and later on MS SQL ServerReporting Services
