Re: Looking For Direction

The reason I am a dinosaur is because I have not kept up with the changing
times over the years (my fault). The LIS is comprised of a GUI front-end
written in Java (Visual Caf?; SDK 1.1 I believe). It interfaces (JDBC) to an
Oracle database.

The equipment at the lab is antiquated. I would say the server is pushing
twenty years old. The network O/S is an unsupported version of Netware (5.0
I think). The version of Oracle, also unsupported, is 8.0.1 and came free
when they did the Netware upgrade eleven years ago. Although we do nightly
backups I have to say I probably wouldn't know what to do should a restore
be needed.

What I am looking for is someone to point me in the right direction in
regards to resources. I need to learn what is out there; tools, etc. that
are used today. I don't expect anyone to give me answer; just point me in
the direction of resources (websites, books, magazines, etc) that would
enable me to learn about options available today for software development.

Off the top of my head, I am thinking of a Unix based version of Oracle for
the DBMS. For the user interface I am thinking of something that is
integrated with a web browser. And of course some sort of interface between
the two. All this with my limited knowledge of what's out there today. I
might be a dinosaur but certainly not stupid; I am quite capable of
learning. I haven't been to school since 1996 when I graduated with a BS in
Comp/Sci& Math.