I have a decision to make and I’m kicking it to the stackoverflow community.
I need to create an app that has one person controlling a timer and a list of people. This person can add people to the list, and start and stop the timer.
There will be a few client instances (in the same network) that will need to react to the changes to the server app. The clients will not make any changes to either the timer or to the list.
I actually have this completed as an asp.net 1.1 application that uses a sql server 2000 backend. the server is a web front end that populates the db with all the info and the clients do a continual query (hidden frame that refreshes constantly) for changes. I know this is not the ideal situation.. hence the upgrade.
I’ve been going back and forth on which way to attack this. I have to stick with .Net. I’m thinking that having the server be a WPF application that still updates the database with the clients using asp.net w/ AJAX will probably be the easiest, but I’ve been reading about using WCF and maybe that’s the better solution.
Ideas?
Thanks.
The Server web front end is just a web page that has the list and the timer on it. when the user adds someone to the list or clicks the start or stop button for the timer, it will update the database (which the clients are polling)
as long as you dont need any interaction with the desktop, i would keep it as a webapp but switch from client pooling to a server push approach (reverse ajax).
why bother with the problem of software distribution if you dont have to.