[2005] Newbie, migrating from Lotus Notes...

I have some development experience in Lotus Notes. Although limited, it gives me a basic understanding of OOP and classes, methods etc. It's been a few years, and while Notes could do what I need doing, this seems like the place to be.

OK. I have some basic questions...and yes I did indeed look through this and other forums, including MSDN and MS KB prior to asking the questions.

A little background...

The project I have in mind is a data based application to track all aspects of a service oriented companies activites. I realize there are solutions out there, but as a Corporate Service Manager I can tell you the solutions available all lack a lot in various areas. This drove me to learn Notes, self taught, and develop the application still used by that organization today. So the following questions arise about developing an app with VB.

1. We need to be able to access data remotely on a regular basis. This includes employee laptops, but could and probably should also include customers. Should I do this as a web-based application, or is there no real advantage in that? I see no reason I can not provide for remote connections, but I am a newbie to this, so input here would be great.
   
2. I have purchased several books on SQL Server, ASP.NET and VIsual Basic/Visual Studio. None of these seems to mention much in regards to deployment considerations I should be looking at during the intital stages of solution creation/development. Obviously I haven't been through devlopment start to finish, but I don't want to get there and find out I needed to do something way back at step one. (best practices?)
   
3. I understand the basics, I think, of declaring something Public or Private. (public is for use wherever, whereas private restricts use/access to the page or form etc.?) My confusion stems from an MSDN doc that gives an example of a class declaration in which several string variables are declared as private, and a boolean is declared public...why? A link to a good explanation would be great.
   
4. I noticed while looking through the Adventure Works DB tables are created for a person, and then other information, such as address info, is stored in a seperate table. Is this simply to help on the server side so that an app isn't asking more of the server than it needs? EG: I just need the name and phone, not the full details of an employee?

TIA for looking and help.

Regards,

Joe

1. I would use a web service for data access, and a win app for the front end. This will reduce the horse power needed for your web server, and you'll have the added functionality of using a windows app.

2. .NET provides setup wizards specifcally for deployment, I would look into these.

3. Its best to give your variables the least scope necessary. A variable accessed in one method should not be declared at the class level. If you need a variable at the class level, but you don't want calling programs messing with it, set it private. If the variable gives functionality to the calling program, declare it public. That being said, you should look into using properties to expose those variables to a calling program.

4. Putting information in a table, and joining with a relationship usually saves space, and allows for a good data base design. For example, if that person has more than one address, you wouldn't want two person records with different addresses, you would want one person record linked to two address records.

OK as I mentioned in the post, newbie here, don't know how to mark as resolved...I feel like I have the answers. Thanks

Joe