Hi guys, I am in the insurance industry and I know that my company spends a lot of money on a needs analysis software that I think is overpriced and only runs on windows. Also, any changes that are made to the off the shelf version are very costly and we don't get access to the source code. I do have some very light programming experience and can come up with the algorythms needed to create the basis of this program. What it does is explains to a client how much life insurance they should have based on factors like their age, debts, inflation, income, etc...

So I need something that can store data in XML format, allow the addition and deletion of clients, and then generating a nice looking PDF file from the info provided. Keep in mind that this will be used in remote locations so net access won't always be possible. I just need to call up locally stored data.

I realize this is a big task, but if I can present something that is working we can actually get a dev team to take it over, but they just lack a bit of initiative - they really don't think that they are capable even though in house we can generate all the algorythms needed. I just need to try and convince corporate to change their mindset a little.

Ideally, I would like something platform independent, and if it could run within a web browser, even better. my only issue is PDF generation. Is this something that could be done with PHP, or am I better off just trying to use something else? Now while I realize that platform independence would be nice, because of my limited programming experience, it would be really nice to use something like the VB IDE but that could create a multi platform solution. My only programming experience is HTML, some basic VB and some basic JAVA. Really I just need a nice little IDE that can let me draw some buttons and I can fight with the code once I write out the algorythms.

Is this possible? Am I asking too much? Please let me know any input you may have.

Maybe you should consider writing a GUI-independent backend in C (such as a command-line program or library). If you don't want to or don't have time to learn C, you could use Python or Perl instead, but I'd recommend using C for performance reasons. After you get a working backend, you could use VB (Windows only), Qt (cross-platform), or another similar toolkit for rapid GUI development and just incorporate the more cross-platform backend into it. This way, the mathematical aspects of the insurance calculator will be cross platform while the GUI can be designed quickly.

Well, for Perl you could start with this list for PDF generation: http://use.perl.org/~TeeJay/journal/31545.
Perl is cross platform and about 80-90% as quick as C.
XML modules: http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-modul...l-modules.html
Perl lang def & tutorials: http://perldoc.perl.org/
You can also use it for CGI scripts: http://www.perl.com/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html see qn 2.4.
Specialists in Perl Q & A: www.perlmonks.org

Ultimately your choice of lang is yours, but the above would help for your proj if you choose Perl.

why store in XML?

Y, I wondered about that. I'm guessing that's actually a data txfr std (think I read something about it in that industry once).
Storage would be better in a DB, assuming a non-trivial amt of records.