What programming language?

BlackIguana

Hello guys/gals.

I have quite a broad question on which I would appreciate your views.

I work in a small business working in insurance providing consultancy advice etc. I am beginning to think that there may be opportunities to build bespoke software solutions off the back of some things we do.

The kind of software I'm thinking about would have to do the following
* perform calculations & handle fairly large amounts of data quickly
* communicate with XL (data export and input etc)
* have graphical aspects (not just static graphs, user-defined graphs)
* Look good overall.

MS access & XL VBA could probably do most things I want but wouldn't look particularly good (I don't think).

Please ignore considerations about whether I'd be able to learn the language or not etc. I'm more thinking about what are regarded as being the most suitable languages for this sort of think at the moment. I can then think about the practical aspects of getting it done.

Thanks in advance.

scojones

Instead of using MS Access you could use MS SQL server, and use Crystal Reports instead of Excel to build reports where you can define your own graphs, etc.

BlackIguana

Thanks - I've heard of SQL server. I used to work with a guy who used that.

Never heard of crystal reports though. Is that a programming language or an add-in to XL? Or is it a seperate reports function that can be integrated into any software.

Eg - would you use SQL server and crystal reports to develop one piece of software?

Cheers.

scojones

BlackIguana wrote:

Thanks - I've heard of SQL server. I used to work with a guy who used that.

Never heard of crystal reports though. Is that a programming language or an add-in to XL? Or is it a seperate reports function that can be integrated into any software.

Eg - would you use SQL server and crystal reports to develop one piece of software?

Cheers.

Crystal Reports is it's own piece of software that you can use to build reports. You can use virtually any data source to pull data from with Crystal Reports, and the reports you can build with them are extremely flexible and look really good. It's really easy to use.

You basically point Crystal Reports at your data source (whether it's a database or whatever), design and build the report, you can then export the report to a format you like (html, xml, xls etc) and publish it wherever, be it a mailing list, on a web site or a network share. You can set up scheduled tasks so reports are generated whenever you like - based on live data so they are as accurate as possible.

No, I don't work for Crystal Reports but I've done alot of work with it in the past.

amen

instead of Crystal Reports you could look at Reporting Services it comes with MS SQL Server.

perform calculations & handle fairly large amounts of data quickly

you would really want to be using a programming language for this not SQL Server.

I assume you are thinking of providing quote/rate information etc so you may be doing some hefty calculations

How would the application be delivered? Stand alone on the desk top or via the intranet?

Why do you need it to integrate with Excel?

Have you looked at Pivot Table and OLAP cubes
or Business Intelligence from Microsoft?

Do you have development experience?
The application might take longer to develop than you think

Post other questions if you have them

cousin_borat

I would listen to SCOJones here.


You would use a database such as MSSQL to persist your data. IE store the data in a database rather than saving as files as in Excel.

Secondly Crystal Reports would be a mechanism for presenting this data to your end business users.

What it sounds more like to me is building bespoke Data Warehouse systems. Have a read of this and see if it fits in with your vision.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_warehouse

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

a licence is needed to use SQL server, i think is is based on the number of users and it is not cheap.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/default.mspx mySQL is an open source alternative that is free. crystal reports are very easy to use, abd generate pretty good graphs

bonkey

BlackIguana wrote:

The kind of software I'm thinking about would have to do the following
* perform calculations & handle fairly large amounts of data quickly
* communicate with XL (data export and input etc)
* have graphical aspects (not just static graphs, user-defined graphs)
* Look good overall.

What you're describing sounds like an MIS or BI solution*, particularly with your references to user-defined graphs.

There's a lot of players in this particular market, offering solutions to different degrees.

You can look at getting an MIS tool which will give you a lot of the functionality you want out of the box, and building your solution with that. Here, you'll (probably) pay up front for the tools, and what you're really selling is the Value-Added, the Service....which would be perhaps in line with the consulting aspect of your existing business.

There are a lot of players in this market and I don't presume to offer you a complete list. Possibilities that immediately spring to mind would be :

- Microsoft Business Intelligence
- Hyperion System 9 (recently acquired by Oracle)
- Qliktech's QlikView (up and coming)
- Pentaho (OpenSource)

Each product will have differing strengths and weaknesses (licensing costs amongst them) so there's not likely to be a magic bullet here.

I don't know if database agnosticism (i.e. your solution doesn't care what it is) is an issue for you, if you wish to have platform specificity (MS-only, Mac, browser-based), or any other factors. These would also play a role in what you ultimately look at for a solution.

If an existing BI tool isn't going to give you the level of customisation or flexibility that you want, then you need to either augment it or replace it with hand-coded tools....but you still have many of the same questions to answer....

jc

* This post 100% buzzword compliant

Merrion

There is also a free version of SQL Server - SQL Server Express - which will probably suit your requirements for the database end.

Clik

Have u considered Visual Studio 2005 from microsoft. It has expess versions of VB.net and C# that are free. The full version of Visual Studio has crystal reports included (not full version). As well as SQL Server Express there is also also SQL server compact which is very suited to standalone desktop applications and also free. About 10 years ago I started out using Microsoft Access to build database applications and I found it really good. I then moved onto Visual FoxPro and recently I've started using VB.net. Be prepared for a steep leanrning curve if u want to take database programming seriously.

BlackIguana

Thanks guys.

Sorry for lack of reply. I've been on holiday for past week.

I will use this thread as reference when I start to get into it. Sounds like crystal reports is worth looking into definetely.

Amen - in response to your questions;

* No, not quote/rate systems. Management Information Systems.
* Re desktops/intranet. Both preferably depending on who the users needed to be...

Cheers.

scojones

Best of luck with it BlackIguana. We're always here!