> >> I'm wondering if I could get some suggestions as to how implement
> >> this quickly and simply? I was thinking a web interface using PHP
> >> would be the fastest way of going about it.
> >
If you used Ruby on Rails, you'd be finished by now. It slices, it
dices, it makes julienne fries.
Seriously, it's not too bad if you don't mind it's plentiful
shortcomings. I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome from typing
<scripting language> pages so I switched to RoR for a hobby app. It
works fine, but you have to do it "The Rails Way" and expect no help
from the "Community" because they are a fanboi cheerleader squad, not
interested in silly stuff like referential integrity, functions,
triggers, etc. All that nonsense belongs in the application!
Check this out, there is no stale connection detection or handling in
rails. I'm not kidding. If you connection drops out, restart your
web server. Sorry. Blah.
Anyway, besides its warts, it is dead easy to use, and does make
putting together web applications in a "green field" scenario quite
painless. Just don't try to do anything outside the box like trying
to access an existing database that uses RDBMS features heavily and
uses normal object naming.
- Ian