I'm looking to develop a web application for a product with an embedded database - hence Firebird. I've spent some time investigating various approaches trying to consider (a) breadth and quality of libraries available and (b) ease of understanding and use (this is my first real bit of programming work so this is relevant!)

Starting with Dreamweaver this uses ADOdb for connecting to Firebird and automates a lot of code generation for basic database connectivity, recordsets etc.. But I can see that for a reasonably sophiticated application a closer handle on the writing the code is required (also I've seen that ADOdb is somewhat "bulky" and may affect performance). To facilitate database connectivity and standard tasks I've been looking at PEAR. This seems to have advantages of breadth of packages available and established quality - e.g. templating (although SMARTY seems popular for this), authentication etc... For ease of use I've played with ezSQL a bit which seems hard to beat.

Firebird is probably a reasonably settled choice of database - so is using an abstraction layer relevant? Each approach probably has pros and cons: any thoughts from you experienced people on most important factors and considerations would be welcome.

Sorry - a lot of questions as a first post. Will


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