MS Fortran to VF or to VB?

[Intel_C_Intel]

FACTS:
I have a financial legacy system written in MS Fortran 5.1. Everything is "home grown" (screens/database, etc). It is the "cash cow" for my business.

My plans were to rewrite in VB 6.0 and hook up a relational database. I wasn't sure what to use to write the business logic. My system has a user subroutine with different entry points where clients can write custom code to interact with the main system. Mostly small amount of code but gives great flexibility to the application. If I rewrite the system I would like to keep this feature. If this user subroutine exists in the directory, then the system recompiles right before execution.

GENERAL QUESTIONS RE VISUAL FORTRAN:
I just discovered Visual Fortran. Where can I get more details? Does it create GUI similar to VB? Can I hook up to relational database using ODBC? Is there a tutorial somewhere I can view?Are most people in this forum using VF for the GUI front end or are they using VB/C++? Does VF run under DOS or is it just Windows?

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS RE MY FINANCIAL APPLICATION:
Ideal situation would be to have VB GUI front end (1st tier), have the financial "engine" doing the business logic written in Fortran(2nd tier) and have a relational database for the backend(3rd tier). From reading comments in the Forum it seems this is doable. Does the Fortran have to be VF? Can VB call MS Fortran 5.1 subroutines? Can I still have a "hook" for a user subroutine that gets compiled before execution?

I thought that as a first step I may convert the current system to VF. But right now I am not sure what kind of conversion effort that would be given that I have homegrown screens and database. What have you guys done??

Any comments would be appreciated.

Maria

[edunlop]

Maria

I have had good experience of Visual Fortran and I would be confident that it can do anything that can be done with MS Fortran 5.1.

Re connection to ODBC look at http://www.canaimasoft.com/f90sql/

Re the development of a GUI interface I would recommend Winteracter, with which I have also had excellent experience and quality of support; see http://www.winteracter.com/ There is no need to use another language (e.g. VB) or to get involved in the complexities of GUI programming using the Winfdows API from VF. See also http://www.polyhedron.co.uk/ - page "Why Winteracter?"

Edmund

[Intel_C_Intel]

I have used some form of Basic and Fortran for years. I work on a very large application that has many screens, a complex database and is very computation intensive. We moved this application to Windows using VB and VF and this has worked very well. There are so many people that know VB that people talk about moving more or the coding to VB, but the performance of VF blows VB out of the water.

VB is great for developing the UI and working with relational databases. Integrating VB and VF is pretty easy once you know how.

I would think you could have compiles and links take place in a batch mode for the VF. I have only used the build process from the development environment.

Speaking of environments, this should be a pleasant upgrade. The VF environment is outstanding, with the VB environment maybe being better, since in VB you can change code on the fly and jump to whatever line of execution that you want. From this standpoint, it may be nicer to have all of the code in one language, since they run in different development environments. You can debug from one development environment to the other, so if performance is an issue on your financial engine, you will certainly want to keep it in Fortran.