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.