RE: New System Development

We are also developing a new corporate system of sorts and we want to do
multiple tier development.  Modules will separate the data and business
logic from the presentation.  We chose to do it this way because we have
about five development groups within our corporation and each one has
different skill sets.  So if we can separate some of that out we can switch
or add different interfaces fairly easily without somebody having to learn
how the lowest level business concepts work.  If we decide tomorrow that
green screens just aren't cutting it for us we can bring in a java developer
and say "Here are your data access modules, here is the business logic
modules, now go create a JSP interface".  Obviously the creation of this
tiered environment is not as easy as I make it sound, especially if you have
never done one before.  But we are hoping that in the end maintenance will
be easier, and when we purchase a new company (which happens a couple times
a year) we will be able to plug in modules to our base system, to meet their
business needs.

A lot of thought now will save you a lot of time later.  Do some smaller
projects first to test your tiered theories.  We started off with shipping
calculators and are now going to address verification and spell checking.
Starting off with something like Order Entry might be a little much.

Hope that helps,
Aaron Bartell