advice for inventory software

[Brian J. Oney]

Dear Python scripters,

I am writing modules for my insectary (for food), the processes of which I plan to mostly automate.

Currently, inventory and the traceability of material flows is my focus. My best idea (yet) for making things as simple as possible consists of a debian server hooked up to a barcode scanner. The input of information would consist of scanning barcode sequences (Start process, item1, ..., stop process). 

For this, I plan to implement a listener to the usb port, which takes the input and knows what to do with it. Later on, there will be multiple simultaneous input sources. For now, I imagine a simple flask app capturing the input and feeding it into an SQL database. 

Certainly, someone has had the opportunity to something similar if not identical. I would be particularly greatful for advice on design and work already done.

For those interested, I have my progress on github.com/oneyb. I almost done with the basic inventory barcode printing functionality I need.

You may think I am reinventing the wheel. If so, why would I ask for advice? Also, the highly closed nature of the insect breeding business, my slim budget, and the desire to easy extend functionality in the near future (plus a mild case of 'I wanna code' [aka NIH] syndrome), push me to learn and implement this myself.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers

Brian