Programing C++/Java for linux?

[savet]

First, my background.  I'm pretty proficient with PHP/MySQL, ASP, Perl, and Visual Basic.  But the extent of my object oriented programming with a GUI is with Visual Basic.

I wrote a program for Windows in VB6, and wish to rewrite it for Linux with additional functionality.  The program will store contact information for potential customers in a database.  The database will also contain certain demographic/financial information such as mortgage balance, # of credit cards, home value, income level, etc.  The program will allow the user to query the database and export a list of individuals matching certain criteria, suppressing against people previously identified as being on the state/federal do not call lists or as having innacurate contact information.  I guess my question is actually multi-part.

1.  Which would you recommend as a first language to learn to write a program with a GUI in Linux?

2.  What books or web resources would you recommend?

3.  Are there any prerequisites you recommend I read up on first?

4.  I'm leaning towards a MySQL database because I am already familiar with it.  Would another database be more appropriate for either of these two languages?  Or would another programming language such as Python be more appropriate for a  MySQL database?

Thanks in advance for your opinions and help.

[Laukev7]

Moving this to the programming section.

[flap]

If it's just a database frontend why not do it in PHP?

Otherwise, does the language you use have to be object-oriented? If you use GTK you could do it in C/C++ or Python; possibly others. If you do it in java then it's irrelevant what platform you're developing it for/on.

[insomnia]

You could indeed write it entirely in PHP.

This mostly depends on how big it is.
If it's big, PHP can be rather slow and cause a very long upload time for your users.  

In that case you could split it in a client(C/C++) and a server(PHP) part.

For the sever part, you can easily mix it with Java ,perl and others (I don't recommend ASP on SQL.).

[WMD]

New idea for if Rio comes back:

GAMBAS.  http://gambas.sourceforge.net

[skyman8081]

Java does have built-in sql libraries in it.

And this sounds like a custom application meant for merchants, to handle inventory.

Java would be a good choice, seeing as not EVERYTHING should be done in a web browser.

If you need to read up on Java, I reccomend Head First Java from O'Rilley Books. ISBN: 0596004656

[ January 30, 2005: Message edited by: sauron.game-host.org ]

[mobrien_12]

If he wants a visual interface builder for a language, he could use C++ with Glade.

[WMD]

I've looked at Glade...all it seems to be is an interface generator.  You can't generate the actual program code with it.  Is there an entire IDE for GTK/Gnome?

[mobrien_12]

I've looked at Glade...all it seems to be is an interface generator.  You can't generate the actual program code with it.  Is there an entire IDE for GTK/Gnome?

Well.... I thought that that was what he was looking for.  

Anyhow, maybe GNUStep is more what you had in mind.  
Slashdot Article
Flash Demo of GNUstep Development Tools.