I'll concede, that if you have a captive audience, web apps versus client server possess equivalent effort to develop. As well as native clients providing a superior experience. An easy example of this would be to compare any native mobile app to a web based mobile app. Web based mobile apps often suck because they are really hard to do well.

Though I also believe web apps are usually good enough for most data entry applications.

Define the problem, come up with a design and pick the tools you think will work best. That's what I was trying to say. I wasn't really advocating one thing as superior to another. I was advocating right tool for the job.

I'm personally not a fan of PHP, but I'd be foolish to discount the reasons for it's success. Mainly an easy to use, stateless framework. All frameworks have bugs and exploits, PHP has more due to one of it's virtues. It's easy to pick up and develop with. So large numbers of neophytes contribute functional but buggy code.

Spring and Wicket were mentioned as a class of java frameworks. Yes, they take longer to develop. It's a trade off.

I think you can compare Tesla to Suzuki, both manufacture vehicles for transportation. Which is comparing a car to ... a car.

Otherwise, what would you suggest?

FIrst decide the right way to solve the problem, then look at the available tools to solve it.

Client server is better at solving specific problems, anything graphics heavy usually. For pure data entry a straight up server side web application is usually the best choice. You don't need to support multiple client installs, just the server instance.

For ease of development: PHP, for scalability, some java based framework (Spring, Wicket, etc...) or even Scala/Play if you feel somewhat daring.

It should have been one of the options, I call slashdot #fail# :-)

Why do you have to be 'retrained'? Can't you just pick a technology up? I worked with .NET 2.0 years ago and recently did another project with the. C#/.NET 4/ C++ interop. Took me a week to get up to speed. Before that I wrote and android app and now I'm writing an objective C app for the iPhone.

Sorry, but I think the problem is your attitude. You should have been learning all the time, non stop. The fact that you're not tells me you need to find a different career.

d

Just the opposite. At 40, I'm not as quick as I was at 25. On the other hand I recall every moronic stupid mistake I made, in design, in code and I don't repeat them. I deliver software that is consistent and reproducible. Maybe not bug free, but with a good deal less bugs than someone who's not made the same mistakes.

So, there my be ageism out there. Screw'em, they're the the same idiots who keep the business people in peoria and outsource the development to VietNam (because India costs too much). You don't want to work for that company. This recession has an upside in that it will get rid of those companies that are run by morons. Too bad we can't build a mini death camp for our captains of industry (idiocy?)