Using a .Net Workstation Program With a LAMP Server

I am currently working on a 开发者_C百科project for a company with a Ubuntu LAMP server set up. All the workstations are on Windows XP/Vista. What we are trying to do is create a program to track parts in our warehouse. Server side would be programmed in PHP. However, I was thinking about using C# on the workstation side.

Is this possible? If so, is this practical? What kind of problems could arise from something like this?

In a client-server architecture, it doesn't matter what technology the client or server are using, only what communication protocol they use.

In this case it seems like it would be http. I caution this only as there is no contract for pure HTTP, and I would recommend a WS format like SOAP (which still uses http as the transport).

I assume the reason you need a client app at all (rather than just building a web-based app and installing nothing on the workstations but a browser) is because you have some sort of bar-code or RFID scanner that you use for tracking goods in and out of the warehouse, and you need to interface with it.

Firstly, I'd highly recommend finding a way of avoiding installing a client-side application. If you can make it all web-based, you will have less code to maintain, and no distribution/installation concerns.

If you absolutely must have a client-side app, look at making the server-side RESTful (google this if you don't know what it is), and you can utilise the existing HTTP libraries in the .NET framework to send and receive data to/from the server.