[dundee] Database front end - any ideas?

[Rick Moynihan]

On 08/02/2008, Barry Carr <barry at benericht.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Jen,
>
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > A bunch of us have a database project to do and I was wondering if
> > anyone had any ideas for what we could use as a front end?
> >
> > We were thinking of maybe a having web interface. I believe the back end
> > has to be Oracle. Preferably cross platform (mixture of windows, linux
> > and OS X developers), and also if it requires an install it should be
> > something we can all get our hands on easily.
>
> There's quite a lot to choose from. If you're set on a web front end then you might want to try
> Ruby-On-Rails. Free to download and deploy and its got quite good tool support Netbeans 6.0, (XP,
> Linux, OS X - runs on the JVM) and TextMate (OS X). Rails has excellent DB support but may struggle
> if you're expecting a lot of visitors to the site. Deploying a rails app can also be a bit of a pain
> too. There are also a couple of JVM alternatives, like Grails (Ruby on rails like framework for
> Groovy) and JRuby-On-Rails (Netbeans has direct support for this too).
>
> If you want a desktop app then you can choose between Mono (although I'm not sure how good its DB
> support is) or the JVM. If you go for the latter then I wouldn't use Java but have a look at Groovy
> or Scala instead. Groovy and Scala should be able to use all Java libraries and frameworks that are
> currently available and both of these languages are waaay ahead of Java esp. Scala. If you use the
> JVM you might also want to take a look at Hibernate which is an Object-relational mapping framework.
>
> There is loads more to choose from but the above should point you at the current mainstream.

Now, now, Barry I'm not sure any of those other than perhaps Rails and
Hibernate are mainstream! :-)  Sure, they're all generating a lot of
interest amongst tech bloggers and the like and have many compelling
reasons for adoption but they're definitely not mainstream... They're
just fashionable to talk about :-)

--
Rick Moynihan
rick.moynihan at gmail.com
http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/blog/