Lennart wrote:
On Jun 13, 5:27 pm, Nano <mhr...@gmail.comwrote:
Hey,
I have been studying and working on databases for quite a time now.
I know quite a lot about databases. Now I have been assigned a
project where I have to build an application using the database. I
know all the work to be done with database. The cause of worry is
front end of the application. Since I have no expertise in any of
the language I am totally helpless, how to develop a good front end.
I know I can easily make a front end on MS Access but that do need
MS Access to be installed on every machine running the application
which seems to be impossible looking at the cost of Microsoft
licenses.
I haven't tried myself, but open office (http://www.openoffice.org/)
is free and has similar functionality as MS Office
[...]
/Lennart
I just tried out the forms functionality in the Base application in
OpenOffice.org. Rather rudimentary, but it does work - so that's
certainly a cheap option (and of course, OOo's got quite a bit of
scripting functionality - although last time I tried it back in 2.0 it
was rather flaky).
A few years ago I would've recommend Delphi [1] for this sort of thing
without hesitation. Okay, it's quite expensive and only supports
Windows (don't mention the CLX ;-), but it was an /excellent/
environment for building database front-ends.
Nowadays, I'd prefer to build a web front-end where possible (makes
roll-out, and the whole cross-platform question a lot simpler).
However, although there's plenty of frameworks out there to make
building database-backed webapps easier (myriad Python frameworks
[2][3][4][5], Zend [6], Rails [7], a whole slew of Java stuff, etc.,
etc.) I'd say it's still a good deal more complex to build a decent,
secure, cross-browser web app than it is to whip up a single-platform
front-end in Delphi (unsurprisingly).
Given that you were thinking about Access I'm assuming a web front end
isn't what you're interested in anyway. So, I'd recommend you take a
look at the Lazarus project [8] - it's an open source reimplementation
of Delphi. Last time I checked it was still rather flaky on some
platforms, but it already had equivalents for most of Delphi's database
interface components (db-aware edit, listbox, checkbox, radiobutton,
grid, navigator, etc.), various connection components (MySQL,
PostgreSQL, Oracle, Interbase/Firebird, and ODBC IIRC), and
happily(ish) compiled GUI apps for Windows and Gnome.
Although I've never used it myself, I've also heard good things about
Visual FoxPro [9] (which can apparently build standalone apps which
access remote databases). It's being sunset [10], but perhaps that'll
just make it cheaper?
Also, there used to be something called DB2 Forms. Again, not something
I've ever used but it sounded like a quick'n'easy way to build
interfaces. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any trace of it -
perhaps it's been sunset and replaced by something else?
[1]
http://www.codegear.com/products/delphi/win32
[2]
http://pylonshq.com/
[3]
http://www.djangoproject.com/
[4]
http://turbogears.org/
[5]
http://www.zope.org/
[6]
http://framework.zend.com/
[7]
http://www.rubyonrails.org/
[8]
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/
[9]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vfoxpro/bb190288.aspx
[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_...Recent_history
Cheers,
Dave.
