From: nospam@nospam   
      
   pdox42 wrote:   
      
   > i think fixing things that aren't broke ... and this talk of   
   > change ... although mentioned earlier on, really needs to be   
   > gradual.   
      
   Agreed and to my earlier point - you'll be able to change gradually if you   
   start before some crisis.   
      
   I'm not encouraging you to spend a bunch of money - just invest some time   
   persuing one of the questions you asked in your original post - what options   
   are out there?   
      
   > i'm not sure what db we're supposed to look into.  nobody has mentioned   
   > looking into "sql" or a scripting language or something that could help   
   > transition us into oop.   
      
   Based on your previous posts and your description of your present operation,   
   don't try building something from scratch again.  I suggested this once and   
   I'll suggest it again - if you look hard enough, you'll find Open Source   
   software that does pretty much what you need.  Install it, work with it, get   
   comfortable in that development environment -- then customize the package as   
   your company needs.  Sourceforge is probably the best place to look.  Even   
   if you can't use most of an app, a database structure is nice to have.   
      
   If custom development is the only way to go, there are far more options   
   nowadays for browser-based applications than for rich GUI apps.   
      
   Some folks are heading down Microsoft's .NET road.  That's probably the   
   simplest choice for a robust, easy-to-use visual GUI development, so long as   
   you don't mind working with MS tools.  Your de facto database in this case   
   would be MS SQL Server.   
      
   There are a bunch of Java IDEs you can use as well for GUI development,   
   which'll have the benefit of turning out apps that can run on PCs, Macs, and   
   Linux machines (you'd mentioned you were looking at alternative OSes).   
   You'd probably get up and running quickest with something like JBuilder - I   
   don't know how cross-platform that is.   
      
   If you can go browser based, there are about a jillion possibilities.  The   
   popular ones here are, again, .NET and Java, plus PHP.   
      
   Whatever you do, you'll probably be best served building on some   
   framework -- either a somewhat functional app (ideally) or one of the   
   development frameworks for your chosen platform.  Using a framework gets   
   around having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the standard things   
   present in most applications.   
      
   --   
   Larry DiGiovanni   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)