4GL development (a little OT: perhaps)

["Antony Gelberg" <antony@antgel.co.uk>]

Hi all,

Finally migrating my desktop from XP to Debian.  I'm still going to keep a
(standalone) machine around for Windows development (e.g. Visual Studio,
Access).

Clearly I'd like to do more Linux development.  Most of my customers run
Windows, but they could probably be convinced to migrate.  And for customers
who have no existing system, then it's easier to convince them.

But the fact is that for many business systems, something like Access:
o Lets me create and maintain the UI and widgets quickly and easily using
it's own GUI.
o Has a built in relational database, that can be linked to the GUI with
minimum effort.  (Or optionally, uses ADO or DAO to connect to any number of
databases).

I don't favour any language per se, I always look to use the "right tool"
for the job.

The systems are not massive (unless I land a great contract!).  As a
back-end am I looking at postgresql?  And the front end...  I've thought
about Java / Swing, GTK, QT, even Perl/TK.  Have I missed anything?

Offhand I like the idea of Java - performance is not a major issue, and
hardware is bloody quick these days!  I know GTK is generally favoured over
QT due to the GPL, but how do they compare otherwise?  And is Perl/TK more
for small GUIs (that may do a lot behind the scenes)?

Anyone care to compare and contrast these options with regard to the above
bullets (which, I'm sorry to say, make Access a useful tool)?

Also, are there any free tools that are useful for this kind of development?
Especially with regard to GUI-building?  If I have to code widgets, I'm just
not going to go there!

Finally, if anyone knows of any more appropriate forum, I'm happy to take it
there.  I haven't found anywhere that wasn't full of hackers.  ;)

Antony