Best way to develop my program need guidence

Hello World,

I am kinda new to the whole world of code.

I am just seeking some direction in an application I want to develop.

My program will be a program to handle building of computers in cabinets.

The cabinets will be no more then three linked together.

So I will have a 1 person cabinet a 2 person cabinet and a 3 person cabinet.
There will also be a super cabinet and a mega cabinet.

So the programs objectives:

Take the number of cabinets wanted input and output the data into 4 forms.

One form for the wood.
One form for the graphics.
One form for the electronics.
One form for the basic order.

Now these forms will contain lists of parts that need to be purchased.

If the part is lets say a network switch I will only need 1 of them no matter if it is a 1 person, 2person, or 3 person for obvious reasons we will be linking them together.

I will also need to leave the ability to add on optional items.

These forms will have to be easily readable and clean.

I would also like to have a database containing number of each item in stock and have the program subtract it from stock after being printed but have the ability to save the entered programs state in case the idea changes from a 1 person to a 2 person to allow for it to undo the changes made.

At most 2 computers will be sharing this database a computer used for ordering parts and a computer for running this program.

The database software will need to contain:

Purchase Links (clickable if possible)
Price
Part #
Part # in house
Part Description

So a very vague database really would be nice if it could just be part of the program and viewed by the program.

I know this may sound like a lot to ask for help with for some but I guess I'm not asking for anyone to build my program for me while it would be cool.

Go easy on me I have only made one program so far but I enjoyed it now I'm kinda hooked and want to make this program.

I will be using Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate I dunno what .net it uses per say. But it is the 2010 version.

Thank You all very much for any contributions to help this newb get his Toes or maybe his whole foot wet with code time will tell. The basics I have used are creating my own routines along with if statements.

How would you tackle this from the ground up.

I always like to break a project like this down into smaller challenges and tackle one at a time. The first step may be to download SQL Server Express and start researching how to work with a SQL database in C#. Then practice moving data around using variables in a c# console application.

Once that is working then tackle creating a visual WPF interface to manage the variables.

Thanks for the start so you do suggest sql server I was hoping just to have the program do all of this without learning SQL so it could be the programs own proprietary database and maybe have a client and server version of the software. But yes I can see how SQL would be simpler and you are most likely right this is the best route to take.

I will start there indeed thanks for the tip...


Any other details on where to go with this would be greatly helpful but that should surely serve as a good start! Thanks!

My first data driven programs I used things like .txt documents and excel for a database engine. Terrible mistake, the thing about SQL that can be overlooked by a first time programmer is that it does so much of the work for you.

If I want to find specific data that I stored in a csv document I need to sift through it myself.

In sql you can collect the exact data with a simple statement. For example:

select product_name from products where price < 9.99

Sweet man this is leading to so much useful info I am already starting to lay things out logically in my head how this will work.

Now for the next trick....

Figure out the cheapest and most effective hardware to use in order to interface bar code scanning into this...

I believe from what I am seeing a netbook and a bar code scanner would provide what I need at a fair price but I wonder if there are any tablets that offer good battery life and interface with a bar code scanner so that I could interface that into my database as well... would sure be sweet if it were possible. Every bar code scanner running an os and wireless g or n is extremely expensive so from what I am seeing I do not wish to spend a thousand dollars plus on this but it would be nice if they made a tablet netbook with no keyboard running windows... Just a touch screen for dirt cheap.

I am not 100% sure on the correct hardware to do the job and will not settle till I find something cheap and effective.

What I want to create is barcode add or subtract program that interfaces with the barcode . So sql would query bar code id for the barcode entered then subtract 1 from quantity or add one from quantity each time the bar code is read I can see the possibilities! Oh the light bulb above my head is getting so bright I can barely see the screen this is too good.

I could create a check inventory query to run every time the program is open to warn me when quantity numbers fall below a certain number and have an order now button to push that will bring up the order info or take me to the product page on the web.

There will be a lot going into this program I am sure of it but the end result would own anything as it would be directly tailored to my needs.

This really is as far as I need to go with the database side of thing is query then subtract or query then add the tricky part is finding some way to automatically do this once the code is scanned. I would not know how to do this really without user interaction of pushing a button maybe I first need to store the data as some how then have the user push the button to update stock and it would go through and preform all the queries additions and subtractions as they were scanned but for some odd reason if they lost connection to the database or items were not updated there has to be some type of checking first like check quantity store quantity append quantity finalcheck quantity if store quantity + append quantity = final check quantity DONE else restore quantity and try again.