Re: software strategy for shop
I'm sure your answers will differ - the below represents how I would go
about this.
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Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Thomas Halahan wrote:
>
> i) What database would you use (server will be debian but
> there will be at least one windows machine off of it).
PostgreSQL, hands down. It's a robust, full, high-quality SQL
implementation that is easily hooked to any front end you could want
(Perl, PHP, even ODBC).
>
> ii) In what language would you write the administrators
> screen for data entry and sales reports.
>
I would probably write it in Perl/Tk, because that's what I'm used to. It
could equally well be done in Python and probably even Ruby (but I don't
know much about that). I suppose you could use PHP and do the whole thing
over the web, but that wouldn't be my approach. I think the language wars
are overstated -- write it in whatever language you feel most comfortable
using.
> iii) How should the shop browsing be organised, and
> similarly the online ISP browsing. Clearly it would be
> easier if I were to mirror the online website with one in
> the shop.
>
Assuming you have sufficient bandwidth, I wouldn't bother mirroring in the
shop (or, alternatively, I wouldn't bother with hosting an online website
outside the shop). You need to have a good, up-to-date database of stock
on hand, which means both your online site and your local site need
real-time access to it. The simplest way to handle that will be to have it
all in one place.
Good luck!
ap
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