Best Framework for Developing Rich Desktop Application with Access to Local Database Server

Question

Hi,

My goal is to build a (visually) rich desktop application that:

1) I can easily integrate rich UI components (like interactive charts)

2) Can connect to a client side MSSQL database

3) [optional] can be easily transformed into a web application in the future (dropping the local database access requirements)

Looking at Silverlight, Adobe Air and Google Gears - all are great for (1) and (3) but not for (2). The traditional framework .NET, Java are not as good for (1) as the Internet oriented frameworks. Is there a silver bullet? Any framework that combines all those requirements.

Any help / advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

If you are pretty sure this will be a web app eventually, I'd suggest you start off with that and create an intranet app.

However, for just a nice gui app with charts and sql server access, winforms work perfectly.