four-tier applications (was re: WinNT/Linux)

[Alan Ward]

I also had the problem of integrating data on Linux boxes
with users on Windoze. I use:

- apache as a front-end for postgreSQL, through the PHP 
scripting language. Can't see why you couldn't use PHP
to parse plain-text files dumped by your calculation.

- a small graphical Java front-end for other kinds of 
programs, through a direct socket-to-socket connection.

The nice part with both HTML and Java is that there are 
enough programmers out there (e.g. my students) who know
them well enough to fiddle with font-end issues, giving
ME time to fiddle with the gory innards of the system.

Cheers,
Alan Ward