Database....

[knarf_foo]

hi all,

i've got a very *****ious project in mind... i used to be a programmer and worked on UNIX/Informix/4gen, but it's over 7 years since i quit now...

i'm now in my dad's family business and i would like to write a complete Invoicing/Inventory/Accounting system running on Linux of course and should be a text based app...

what should i use ?

plz bear in mind that i'm new to Linux...

i've seen quite a few recommending python and postgresql... i was only wondering if the combination is worth it for my project, and also how steep the learning curve for both might be...


thanks in advance

frank

[Stuka]

If you remember much about Informix, the PostgreSQL won't be too bad for you. Depending on your personal programming preferences and backgroung, Python may be a good choice. If you're comfortable with Perl, it would work as well. Python is supposedly easy to learn - I can't say as I haven't learned it. However, this combination WILL work, as would Perl, or C++, or Java with PostgreSQL. I wouldn't recommend MySQL for this, however, as it currently lacks some data protecting features that should be considered required for any mission critcal database.

[GaryJones32]

Python is plenty OOP and very easy to use
Java without all the variable typecasting
but you take a performance hit with such a high level
scripting (interpreted) language
not too bad with Python
but Java way sucks on Linux

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by GaryJones32
but Java way sucks on Linux How do you figure? It works fine here...

[oldaren]

IMHO Java works fine on Linux. I haven't written any Java program that access a database under Linux, but plenty of other programs. I've also written a couple of quite large Java/JDBC programs under HP-UX and Solaris and they worked just fine as well, so I can't see why such programs should suck on Linux. But I may be wrong...

[knarf_foo]

thanks to all for your input. sorry, had to go away after i posted my original query!!!
not started my project :-( i´m now trying to find out how to use dialog.py module to display on VT100 terminals...

[flukshun]

perl/mysql

perl's DBI package is one of the best database interfaces out there, and it's database independent so if you prefer oracle or postgresql that's not a problem.

perl also has a nice ImageMagick interface package so dynamically generating graphical invoices and whatnot from database queries is a no-brainer. If you prefer text-only that's also trivial.

perl is just all around awesome and i can guaruntee it's at least suitable for this task. whether you use it or not is just a matter of preference, but i'm willing to bet the perl route will be the quickest path to developing such a system.

[LinuxFanatic]

Have a look at
http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/29071/0/page/1
Shows how to use python with postgresql