Why C/S GUI? (was Re: New Era or what?)

Billy Wheeler <billy.wheeler@digitec.co.za> wrote (edited): >-> We're searching for a gui front end to replace our >-> character-based Fourgen running with SE. > >What I can't understand is why anybody would actually want to. If I could chuck >this out into the forum for general debate, I would like to know what the >material advantages of Client/Server GUI apps are in the business environment. > >Employing c/s for a core business app just shifts the stress of the application >from the server to the network and means that you have to have access to >serious network management skills as well as everything else. Have I missed the >point to c/s/gui, or what? > >I would really appreciate some enthusiastic debate on this, so please respond. Not enough Dew in me to do an enthusiastic debate, but I'll give you an answer: Because it's what the user (customer) wants. I would imagine a large majority of developers (like I suspect most of us are) have no problem with character interfaces and enjoy the great aspects of it such as Informix-4gl and 'vi' and so forth. However, the world isn't about us. It's about them. And having been exposed to both, I would say that there are certain training and ease-of-use advantages (for beginners) that are hard to argue against. Oh, and GUI is cooler. I would take an application that has neat-o pictures and toys and all that before a plain old character one (all else being equal, of course). Just look at WWW. Much, _much_, neater in the GUI, but much more useful to me (and I'm guessing us) in the character, but only because of speed. If they were equal, no doubt I'd take the GUI. Thanks, rodney