Reports, PDF, and grid widget for Python?

[Adams-Blake Co.]

Cameron Laird wrote:


------------------------

> It's simpler than this.  VB/IIS has ... given you a perspective
> that is not universal.  It's simpler than this, really.
> 

Nothing is ever simple. I've been doing business application design and 
programming for thirty years now. And while I don't know everything, nor do I 
even know a lot of anything, I do know that the very first sentence in this 
paragraph is true!

What I want to do is re-write the application found here:


http://www.adams-blake.com/item.asp?recordid=pubscreen&default=blankpagepub

We want to take it out of VB 6 and make it x-platform. And best case, we 
would like to make this a web-based application that can either run on a 
company intranet or (and more likely) as a "web-service" subscription that 
small publishers would subscribe to. (Please don't debate the economics or 
viability as we've been in business for many years and this product sell very 
well to its niche market and our research shows that a subscription service 
is viable.)

We're a small company and we have a million years of M$ experience. We want 
to move out of that arena (we run Linux now for most of our daily chores.... 
except, of course, our own application!) 

PUB123 is a fairly large application compared to your average Python script 
 and while it's not complex, it has a ton of "features" that business 
people "demand." One of these is the need to generate traditional business 
reports. 

We're too small to have our own co-lo Internet server, so we will have to be 
hosted. How many Zope or JSP host ISPs are there? 

And when you a complete analysis of our needs, MS.Net has everything we 
want.... except for it being proprietary!! I don't mind working a little 
harder to get a x-platform system, but I don't want to get into bit-twiddling 
as we have a (small) budget and a short time frame to get this thing 
(re)done. 

We started out looking to do another desktop application. We have looked at 
Python/Jython, Java, Ruby, and even Tk/Tcl. After doing the research about a 
web-service subscription the thinking is that we should make this web/browser 
based as that IS the wave of the future (even though WE are still on 
dial-up!!) 

So I'm been looking at ASP.Net, PHP, JSP, and today someone (maybe you?) 
turned me on to Zope. 

As for reporting needs, I don't want to pay a guy $60 an hour for 24 hours 
times 50 reports to do down-and-dirty X,Y co-ordinate Python scripting in 
ReportLab when the same guy using something like Datavision with Java (or 
Crystal) can turn out the same report in 6 or 8 hours. 

I figure that the time to put up the web screens as well as the business 
logic will be about the same no matter what language or platform we use... 
but I like Python because it is so clean-looking and its ability to 
prototype. And database is database (MySql). The one big problem we have is 
reporting... and as this is a BUSINESS SYSTEM reports (via PDF) are a major 
selling point. 

Could we sit down and do our own report engine (in XML)? Sure. And lots of 
people would say to do that. But I write the checks and I have to justify the 
costs to my board and investors... and with the economy they way it is, there 
is not an extra dime in our small budget. The only way for us to invent the 
wheel is to go offshore... and I don't want to do that for philosophical and 
patriotic reasons. 

So to reiterate, NOTHING is easy. It may look easy when you don't write the 
checks and don't have the responsibility for the payroll, but running a 
software business today is not quite like it was 24 to 36 months ago. THEN it 
was easy!!

Sorry this is so long but I didn't have time to make it shorter.

Al Canton
President
Adams-Blake Company, Inc.
Fair Oaks, CA
www.adams-blake.com