Visual Basic 4 as a front end to Informix on Client-Server

I work for a small software house which specialises in bespoke systems for the publishing industry. Up until now all our systems have been on Unix boxes written in 'C' using Informix as the database. We have recently taken the decision to have a Windows front-end to some of our software but don't want to change the server or the database so that we don't have to rewrite all our code. It looks as if we will be using Visual Basic 4 on PCs with some sort of link to the Informix database on the Unix server. However, having no experience in client-server and related matters in the company, we have a few questions, which I would be grateful for input. 1. Should we be using ODBC to get from the client to the server (is there any other choice?). I've heard dire things about the performance implications. 2. Does Visual Basic cope with dates in Informix format? 3. With VB being an interpreted rather than a compiled language, is there any scope for re-using code between modules? If not what happens about source control? I am worried about writing the same bit of code 50 times for 50 different programs, then finding a bug and having to correct it in 50 places. Is there any scope for 'library' functions? 4. Someone told me that there is no record locking in VB4. If this is true then we can't use it as all our systems are multi-user. Someone else told me that there is record locking but it is limited and you can't lock a single Informix record, which is almost as bad. If anyone has used VB as a front end to Informix on client-server I'd be very grateful to hear of any tips, difficulties you had etc. Thanks very much in advance for your help.