Re: client/server ms windows 3.1 applications development

In article <1993Jul1.174824.13907_at_cs.rit.edu> mdp8018_at_cs.rit.edu writes:

>I am looking for any comments, warnings, or suggestions regarding the
> following:
>
>Our group currently is running Oracle V6 on a Sun Sparc II. We have recently
>purchased a skid (18) of laptops with MS Windows Office software. This
> includes
>Microsoft Access. Corporate standards dictate we use Novell Netware. Several
>questions comes to mind:
>
>(3) Once the data has been transferred to a laptop based product (Microsoft
> Access would seem to be ideal given its bundling with MS Office) is Access
> a solid development product - or should the step up to Visual Basic be
> t
>(4) Is Visual Basic appropriate? What about other products like PowerBuilder?
> Understand, a localized (laptop) DB is needed when the laptops are pulled
> off the ethernet and taken home.

This is one of those questions where it really depends what you want to develop with the thing. Access is a low end product that is still in its first release. Visual Basic is a much more powerful language but still lacks really tight database support (such as good support for result sets). Powerbuilder is supposed to be quite user friendly (particularly for people coming from a low end PC database background) however it still lacks flexibility particularly for complex multi-SQL statement selects and reporting. It also needs extra tables set up on the server

SQLWindows is probably the best tool around at the moment to connect to Oracle and one of the most mature (having been around since early Windows 2 days) and flexible. It also has an integrated report writer and doesn't require additional tables on the server (unless you want to use Quest tables). With version 4, it has just gone object oriented.

It all depends on how much beef you need. All but Access require significant training and developmental experience.

-- 
Chris Jack