Some basic advice

[Molenski]

I work in Germany for a Health Service (British) and we are implementing a new application which the doctors/nurses etc. will use for patients records/notes - everything really.

There are going to be several of us looking after this system throughout Germany and we were looking at a way of logging solutions to problems we come up against and making the solutions accessible to certain people.

We decided a good way would be to create an online (intranet) forum that would allow certain people to enter data into a database and also search on the results which would then be displayed on a page. We already have an .asp forum which sits on our Webserver and this was downloaded from the net but is no good for what we want.

The thing is I don't have a clue where to begin as my knowledge of any sort of coding is limited to HTML. I've searched high and low for tutorials but the ones I've found are not what I want. I need a very basic walk you through - this is how you enter data into the database (Access 97), this is how to view a database on a web page, this is how to search a database etc. A bit like I'm a kid really. I'm finding it really frustrating as all the jargon and stuff that comes with these tutorials is sort of doing my head in!!!!!

Can anyone help or am I going to continue to lose the will to live!!!

Molenski
As my bessie bud Kev always says - "Get involved!!!"

 

[Veep]

Go to the Wrox site

http://www.wrox.com

and check out the Book List link. From there you can read an overview of what you're going to get out of each book. If you find one that you feel may be benificial to you, shop for it elsewhere, you'll find it somewhere else for less.

I'm not saying that you should only be looking at Wrox but I have found that generally their books are pretty good for getting you going (although I've purchased some real losers). If you search for one of these books on Amazon there will be a section showing the other books that people who have purchased this book bought. Check those books out too. Read the reviews. I've often skipped the Wrox book and purchased something else that was exactly what I was looking for.

Good Luck

 

[meckeard]

Check out this site for tutorials. I love it:

http://www.w3schools.com

Also look into the "teach yourself something in 24 hours" or the "dummies" series. Their titles might leave something to be desired, but I found them to be lower lever, which was better for beginners.

I like (and own) a lot of the wrox books. But be careful, as I found most of their books to be overkill when first starting.

If you need some feedback on books prior to purchasing it, look at the reviews on Amamzon.com.

Mark

 

[Molenski]

Hi, thanks for getting back....

Forgive me for being really thick but I've just had a look into the Dummies series and there are books on version 2 and 3....not sure which would be the best or maybe get both....?????? We have the funds!!!!

Happy for any more advice.

Thanks again and please excuse my ignorance.

Molenski
As my bessie bud Kev always says - "Get involved!!!"

 

[sweevo]

Get version 3.

Also, check out O'Reilly books - they tend to be amongst the best general references.

 

[777Ziggorat]

Hi, have you got any experience with VB ?

Not putting ASP down, but programming in VB forinstance is 10 times easier. You might want to work in webclasses. Other than that you will probably want to use the .NET technology, but thats quite a steep learning curve.

If however you really want to go with ASP, go with 3.0 and get a Wrox book on it.

They're usually decent.

cheers

 

[onpnt]

Not putting ASP down, but programming in VB for instance is 10 times easier

I was going to leave it alone but I just can't. I know I'll start all kinds of fun arguments but here are the facts one last time. This forum is meant for theory and logic advancement etc. so this applies.

The statement above if fairly wrong. I'm not one to point this directly out very often but I can't let it slide. ASP = Active Server Pages. VB = Visual Basic. These two entities in themselves are completely on the opposite side of the tracks from each other. One is a platform and one is a language. The comparison here may be Windows Forms verses ASP's. Now besides that pointed out a little clearer the idea that programming a windows form is easier is slightly a bad comparison also. Programming in VB, C++ and all the others avail for windows forms in VB6 is a completely different type of programming verses a scripting language specification for ASP. Compilation and interpretation take two different types of techniques to programming all together. My personal opinion is VB is god-awful and tedious language especially compared to something as it's scripting counter-part vbscript. A scripting language gives you far more control over what you are doing then the so-called parent languages.

Now that's my opinion. To make a fact statement is impossible. Any statement is going to be opinion and that's all. But the platform verses language specification must be brought into the scale of things when you make the statement.

note:777Ziggorat this is in know way stabing at you. I'm sure you meant everything I just stated above, but for any new-comers to this type of development I wanted it to be clear of what ASP actually is. especially when trying to compare it in it's class of platforms available.

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[Tarwn]

Nicely pointed out onpnt. An additional point though, Programming an intranet application in VB is by no means easier than creating an intranet site in ASP. Especially if your using an Access database as the backend.


On the original question(s). You will want to go with ASP 3. This is supported by IIS5+ (IIS4 should be upgradeable, i think it runs ASP 2 out of the NT4 box, don't remember, been a while).
I'm glad to see someone pointed out the w3schools site, they have what has to be one of the best online references I have seen for ASP, ADO, and other companion technologies. I still use it everytime I forget the order of arguments in certain rarely used methods.
As far as forums are concerned, there are many packages out there already pre-built. I haven't actually used any of them myself (I enjoy builing everything from scratch, which is why I am so far behind on my website), but one of them should be able to fit your needs.

One thing you should be aware of is that your going to need to use HTTPS protocol for the pages as well as making sre that things like the database itself are not in your virtual web hierarchy. I don't know about health IT standards in Germany, but you may also have to log every login attempt and so on.
Once you have an application up I would suggest some load testing as well as a large amount of standard testing to ensure uptime. I know several types of companies (pharmaceutical for instance) require 100% uptime out of every application, as well as authentication, security, change tracking, etc in order for the application to meet standards.

-Tarwn

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http://www.tiernok.com/

The never-completed website

 

[Molenski]

Thanks to all of you for this....it's cool to see so many helpful people out there wanting to help a newbie!

Cheers.

Molenski
As my bessie bud Kev always says - "Get involved!!!"