Re: Getting management to move from green screen



I spend all day working on an application that has done exactly the thing
that is being argued about right now.

It's been in production use for over 2 years and works quite well.

I took a completely green-screen based ERP system and turned it into a very
effective GUI application using .NET. The application is distributed to the
users via One-Click deployment. For those not familiar with this, the
software checks for a new build when you start it up. If one is available, it
is installed on the client and executed. If I change any of the dependancies,
those are also updated, including any changes I make for CLR versions
such as going from v2.0 to 3.5.

My data entry fields are configured by the product type being entered into
the system - it adjusts what fields are available on the fly.

Validation is performed as the current entry field is being left. If there
is something wrong with the field, the background of the field will turn red
and the user may or may not be notified by dialog box at this time.

When the user "saves" the data, another complete check is performed to make
sure that no required fields are skipped. If any are found, they're flipped
to a red background and the user is notified.

As a final step, I've got a server side subroutine (Rule Module in D3
parlance) that does any post-processing checks that need to be performed
on the data. This was done to allow me to adjust the post-processing
requirements on the back end without requiring an application update on the
client end.


Converting a green-screen application to GUI is trivially simple with the
current tools that we have available to us as developers. Anyone that thinks
different is deluding themselves. I'm not talking out of my hat here, I've
done it! It's NOT hard. The only roadblock in the process is the
communication layer. Once that is taken care of it's all downhill from there.

Take a peek at the JD3 project on SourceForge to see how a basic communication
system can be implemented. The project isn't for Java only. There are
ports of the main interface to C# and to PHP if memory serves. While the
server components are D3 only due to how they're implemented, it would be
a fairly simple task to convert it from a "native" socket based server
to a telnet based server along the lines of mv.Net.

The "security" issues mentioned with a gui vs green-screen app are pure
hooey. A common screen capture trojan would comprimise either system and
if you're a professional, you're going to use something like that or a packet
sniffer for windows clients or a passive RS-232 tap for "real" terminals.

My users don't even have to "log in" to the application. When it starts, it
grabs their username from Windows (it's set when they log into the domain)
and I grab their profile from the system based on that data. I'm making the
windows machine handle the actual authentication and I just worry about
what they can or can't do based on their configured profile. This stuff
is really easy.

Wow. I ramble like Tony. *runs*

g.
.

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