this whole project is a voluntary free service i am attempting to provide to a small family owned and run niche-market store

With all due respect to my esteemed brothers who suggested mysql or postgres, those both seem like overkill for this particular application.

This is Mom and Pop type business, which I interpret to mean that multiuser access and scalability are NOT serious issues here. Further, Lord Wrath's inclination is to go with VB and Access, which, while not my personal choice for such things (Never ever!), seem from a distance at least appropriate to the job.

So all things considered, before even discussing a possible Perl-based solution, I'd expect a reasonable impedance-match between these particular requirements and a VB/Access-based implementation.

That said, it's less clear why alternative strategies are even being considered. Perl? C++? What seems to be required here is a short development time (so forget about C++), and no development costs (other than time itself). Perhaps the motivation is personal, as in wanting to develop something in Perl?

Developing a solution in Perl could (broadly speaking) go one of four ways:

• Command-line driven (probably not an option, really)
• Local GUI such as Perl/Tk, Win32::GUI, et al (May be more work than it's worth if there's a learning curve involved)
• Web-based GUI, or CGI
• I'm sure there's another option, but it escapes me

While my own preference might be to go with a web-based approach, using Apache, CGI and some sort of simple database accessible from Perl (like, say JSprite, the standalone version of DBD::Sprite, which uses a CSV-like text-based file format--no need for the overkill of even a small RDBMS), I have to say, despite my own personal biases, that I think the VB/Access approach offers the greatest bang for the buck on a project like this.

To wit, If ever there comes a time when the business expands and they need to migrate to a (gasp!) purchased system, there seems to be a much greater likelihood of being able to find a VB programmer who knows Access to decipher what you've done (presuming you yourself are not available), than an Apache/Perl/CGI programmer who is comfortable enough (and willing!) to work with the PC as a platform.

While I am all too aware of the forum we are in (who here hasn't experienced the "When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail" Syndrome), I have to answer your question honestly, and this just strikes me a an obscure application for Perl.

dmm

Just call me the Anti-Gates