[GLLUG] General programming question

Jason Green greenja6@msu.edu
Thu, 1 Aug 2002 17:02:32 -0400


I'm looking for a good combination of a front-end interface/programming
language and a scalable back-end database.  After a bit of research, I'm
leaning towards PHP on Apache with PostgreSQL.  This will be used to develop
an accounting system for a niche market with customizable reporting
abilities and will generate government reports and contracts.  Replication
is important (hourly backups if a mirroring-type solution is not available).

I've never used PHP (and not much HTML), but have a decent amount of C/C++
knowledge.  However, my primary skills are in MS Access and VB/VBA.  I
looked at pgAccess which is a Tcl/Tk app that tries to mimic MS Access.
It's not very impressive yet, but has a lot of potential.

I like PostgreSQL's transaction support as well as the "better than
record-level locking" they use.  This application will need to accommodate
roughly 100 concurrent users.  I really like Access for it's rapid
application deployment abilities, but I've experienced too much database
corruption, it's slow for multi-user applications, and won't really scale to
my needs.  Plus, MS's licensing is getting ridiculous, and I refuse to
license MS SQL Server when open source alternatives exist.

So, has anyone developed any applications with this kind of usage level?
What would you recommend for database software, easy to manipulate front
ends (and intuitive for end users), or other general suggestions?  Any
specific resources you've found helpful?  Oh yeah, if you have a suggestion
for database software, which OS works the best for it?  Thanks in advance!

Jason Green
greenja6@msu.edu