I see that many considerations have to be made and that we can all hope that
R:Base may someday run in a browser and/or be multiplatform. Many of us
hope for freedom from MS, but R:Base is a DOS/Windows program so we need to
continue this road. Has anyone been able to run R:Base for DOS on a Linux
machine using an emulator such as DOSEMU (see http://www.dosemu.org/) or the
Windows version under WINEHQ (see http://www.winehq.com)?
I am writing a small summary of my conclusions from the responses.
Corrections are welcomed.
>From the responses, I take it that if I have few users, then it is better to
go with something like PC Anywhere or use Windows Terminal Server (also,
this solution may already be available in a certain organization). This
reduces the time needed to market and at small numbers the price is
reasonable.
If the number of users is larger (say 15 or more), then a solution based on
Tango or ASP may be more appropriate. Since Tango and ASP (VBScript) are
similar in concept, except that the non-HTML language (handlers) is
different, I will look into this. Time, security and cost considerations
(as well as ease of programming) need to be considered.
For static information, perhaps the best thing would be to use something
like FileMaker. I downloaded a copy from the web to try it. I "opened"
CONCOMP via ODBC, and retrieved information from a view. I then saved the
information as HTML. All this within 5 minutes of installing FileMaker.
For ten users, FileMaker is less than 300 dollars and can create HTML, run
in a browser without Terminal Server or the license allows up to ten users
per license. This solution does create the problem of maintaining the
"copy" and it is not an interactive solution.
Thanks to all.
Enrique Wintergerst
