Re: Development ideas

Comments inline:

Adam Lang wrote:
>
> You are overlooking the major issue with developing a critical app on
> Windows technology.  Microsoft breaks their tech every 2 years.

     This is either "new" or "old" news depending on your perspective.

> I don't trust MS applications more than a client front end and have a
> backend server do all the work, again though, you are still tied to any
> changes they do to their architecture (vb6 to vb.net as a case in point).

   Nobody else does either, including MS.
>
> Granted Java is not perfect either.  Sun can break things at will if they
> chose too.

I thought you supported writting a "new" application in Java ???

> In reality, the only languages that are safe are open ones.  COBOL, C/C++,
> etc.

Yeppp, you want to use a language everybody gets to change when
they don't like a feature.


> I assume there are a lot more C/C++ coders than Cobol coders, as well a I
> would assume the amount of COBOL programmers available dwindle year by year,
> as well as cost to employ.  How many kids come out of college knowing C and
> java as opposed to COBOL?

I don't know that number and I suspect, neither do you. There are huge
numbers of COBOL programmers world wide. There are also huge numbers of
C++
programmers, I guess. Computer related degrees in schools are now not
in fashion since that little "dot.gone" thing of the last year or two.

Nobody wants to be a programmer anymore, since it doesn't allow you to
become a zillionaire in two years or less.


> C/C++ will always be around for as long as we can see, currently.

      They said the same thing about PL/1 a few years back. That
      didn't work out quite like everybody wanted. This was a first
      cousin of C++ and few other language thrown in for good luck.

I recall Fortran having a similar calling when I was in college. This
was back in the "neanderthal" period of computers. We punched our cards
by candle light.

> BTW, if you are looking at Linux desktops, Kylix from borland seems to be
> real nice for application development.  The same Delphi code will compile
> for Windows or Linux, natively -- as long as you use the cross platform
> widgets and nothing OS specific.  Again though, I would make the real
> processing on the server backend and make the desktop piece just an
> interface and data validate.

I think you just described a 5250 data stream using pc's...