Re: New user

[Derek Neighbors]

> My long term aim is to replace an existing networked database,
> currently running on Dataease 4.53, with a postgres based system.
> The overall network system consists of Linux & Netware servers plus
> Win98 client machines.

GNUe should be good for this.

> I've no prior knowledge of SQL / Postgres or Python, but I have good
> knowledge of C and programming in general (I do a lot of assembler &
> embedded work).

You will pick up Python quicker than you could ever imagine.

> The database I'm hoping to replace has around 25 forms, ranging from
> one to five screens worth of data, many of which use a number of
> virtual fields displaying data extracted from other related tables.
> It consists of Customer & Supplier data, Stock information, Machine
> data(the customers product; technical spec, options fitted, customer
> site etc) and Parts lists / sub-assembly lists. The long term aim is
> to also integrate this with at least the stock section of the
> accounting system(presently Sage Line 50) 

Again I think all doable.

> I think what I'm trying to achieve fits in fairly well with the gnue
> project, but so far I'm not sure just what the present version of it
> will do.

It likely will do what you need it to do in its current state.

> So far, with just a fairly brief look at the designer, I don't even
> know if this requires an existing database structure, or if it can
> create / manipulate tables to suit the forms it creates (as Dataease
> does)...

Currently designer doesnt 'manage' db tables.  So you would need to
create the structure with something else (like pgadmin).  If your
dataease db has an odbc driver you could simply using the dbmigration
tool in pgadmin and it will create all the tables for you.

> I'm happy to work on the development side, as time permits, once I
> understand enough about the project.

Right now we are in desperate need of users.  So dont worry about
working on development side, we are content just having more users.  Of
course, as soon as you are interested in doing development let us know,
we are always looking for help. ;)

> In the meantime, if anyone has any info or ideas that would be of use
> - (other than to get books on SQL & Postgres - they are already on
> order:)
>  - I would greatly appreciate hearing from them!

I think you will like GNUe.

-derek