HELP - Selection of Development Software? Thoughts??

[Wade Eyre]

Folks, I have a quick question that I would very much appreciate some
feedback on. We are a not for profit charity organization that has decided
to develop a software in-house to manage our volunteers. We have SQL and
that makes the most sense from a database solution but we have some issues
surrounding the choice of the development language. Some have suggested
100% java while others say Visual Basic. The head of our team has suggested
we do it in Cold Fusion since this will be an internet based application and
I guess I would very much like some feedback on that choice. We have about 5
organizations that we will tie into this system with about 5000 users
logging in once per month.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Wade

[Tim Morrison]

For Web Development, my choice is Codecharge... http://www.codecharge.com/

For desktop applications, I choose Clarion, http://www.softvelocity.com/

Both are very capable.

Tim Morrison

"Wade Eyre" <we***@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:9v******************@read1.cgocable.net...

Folks, I have a quick question that I would very much appreciate some
feedback on. We are a not for profit charity organization that has decided
to develop a software in-house to manage our volunteers. We have SQL and
that makes the most sense from a database solution but we have some issues
surrounding the choice of the development language. Some have suggested
100% java while others say Visual Basic. The head of our team has suggested we do it in Cold Fusion since this will be an internet based application and I guess I would very much like some feedback on that choice. We have about 5 organizations that we will tie into this system with about 5000 users
logging in once per month.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Wade

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

"Wade Eyre" <we***@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:9v******************@read1.cgocable.net...

Folks, I have a quick question that I would very much appreciate some
feedback on. We are a not for profit charity organization that has decided
to develop a software in-house to manage our volunteers. We have SQL and
that makes the most sense from a database solution but we have some issues
surrounding the choice of the development language. Some have suggested
100% java while others say Visual Basic. The head of our team has suggested we do it in Cold Fusion since this will be an internet based application and I guess I would very much like some feedback on that choice. We have about 5 organizations that we will tie into this system with about 5000 users
logging in once per month.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.
What are your developers skilled in?

Personally I'd say ASP. It's free and in my experience works better than
CF.
Cheers
Wade

[Leythos]

In article <9v******************@read1.cgocable.net>, we***@cogeco.ca
says...

Folks, I have a quick question that I would very much appreciate some
feedback on. We are a not for profit charity organization that has decided
to develop a software in-house to manage our volunteers. We have SQL and
I hope you bought a CPU license for your SQL server as you can not use a
standard CAL for applications that provide data to internet based
applications. The only exception to this is a SBS 2003 install if I
remember correctly.

A CPU license retails for about $4,999.

that makes the most sense from a database solution but we have some issues
surrounding the choice of the development language. Some have suggested
100% java while others say Visual Basic. The head of our team has suggested
we do it in Cold Fusion since this will be an internet based application and

Cold Fusion runs on top of IIS, Cold Fusion MX is another beast
entirely.

Since you didn't tell us what the site is for, no technical details, it
will be hard for anyone to tell you what is the best development
platform.

Here are some things to consider -

Have you considered an Off-The-Shelf product?

What languages do your current developers understand?

What is your timeframe for completion?

Did you build a list of requirements and template the user interfaces
and get signoff from the people that will be using the system on a daily
basis - you don't need to know what platform you will use to mock up
some templates to fit the requirements definitions.

What Server platforms are you currently running, supporting, have
experience with?

Are you hosting the application in your facility or external location?

If internal, did you purchase a firewall yet?

Answer all these and we can tell you what would be best.

Without the above, I can say the following:

If your people are MS types, go with .Net, it's as fast as other
platforms.

If you people are not MS types, and your servers are Linux based, go
with a java platform.

I've built large sites to manage people with my coding teams, we've done
every platform known and have no preference for any of them. It all
comes does to what the supporting organization is able to manage, what
the clients people know, and what the client wants to use.

..Net or Java, either one works great. Stay away from CF if you can.
--
--
sp*********@rrohio.com
(Remove 999 to reply to me)

[louis nguyen]

"Wade Eyre" <we***@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:<9v******************@read1.cgocable.net>...

Folks, I have a quick question that I would very much appreciate some
feedback on. We are a not for profit charity organization that has decided
to develop a software in-house to manage our volunteers. We have SQL and
that makes the most sense from a database solution but we have some issues
surrounding the choice of the development language. Some have suggested
100% java while others say Visual Basic. The head of our team has suggested
we do it in Cold Fusion since this will be an internet based application and
I guess I would very much like some feedback on that choice. We have about 5
organizations that we will tie into this system with about 5000 users
logging in once per month.
Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Wade

Hi Wade,
5000 users once a month is relatively speaking a small site. I second
Greg's opinion that your developer's skill set really should determine
what language to use. Java, asp, and cf are capable languages. It's
really up to the developer if he's going to make you a cadillac of a
site or an unmanageable mess. In my opinion web developement is still
more art than science. Because the developer needs to be
knowledgeable in sql, java/asp/cf, html, style sheets, javascript and
windows/unix.