Product Description

(Pearson Education) Gives the working programmer guidelines for writing better code and designing better systems, addressing general practices and critical issues in working with COM. Also discusses databases and effective data access, and other important uses of Visual Basic, and using XML, IIS, and ASP in Web applications. Softcover. DLC: Microsoft Visual BASIC.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2209247 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 306 pages

From the Inside Flap
Visual Basic (VB) has become the most popular programming language in the United States. It is a large language and a complex product. Yet the ease with which it builds graphical user interfaces, accesses databases, and supports the Component Object Model (COM) is impressive. This book is written by VB programmers for VB programmers. We assume you have been working with VB for quite some time and, if you’re lucky, in a variety of ways: building front ends, reading databases, generating Web pages, programming COM objects. The goal of this book is to summarize a number of effective VB techniques that we have learned—and put into practice—over the years. This book has something for everyone, from general practices and COM-based components to COM+ and distributed applications. The wider your exposure to VB and the Windows Distributed Internet Application Architecture (DNA), the more applicable you’ll find the techniques. We follow the style of other books in the DevelopMentor series, in that each technique stands alone as an independent item ready for application. We try our best to describe each item as concisely as possible, and to let you read the book in any order you like. In a few cases, however, one rule leads quite naturally to another and thus should be read in that order; we’ll point these dependencies out to you. If we’ve done our job, then reading this book—and taking its ideas to heart—will make you a more effective VB programmer. It will also make you a better practitioner because your skills will improve in other areas as well, such as object-oriented design, MTS, databases, and the Web.

Acknowledgments We all work for a developer services company called DevelopMentor. It’s how we met, and how we keep abreast of the technology. It’s also a fantastic place to spend one’s working hours, and we owe this book (and much more) to our friends and coworkers at DM. If you ever want to see what DevelopMentor is all about, attend one of our Guerilla events—and be sure not to miss out on Thursday night. By the way, it’s not just the employees that make DM; it’s also the students and their energy. Thank you. We also thank Gary Clarke for his sustained effort in getting this project off the ground and flying. We owe a great deal, as well, to Kristin Erickson (and her coworkers!) at Addison-Wesley for her tireless work behind the scenes, bringing this book to completion. The anonymous reviewers did an excellent job, and we thank them for their hard work under a tight schedule. The book is much better as a result. Finally, we’d like to thank our families for their boundless support and understanding during our late nights of reading, researching, writing, and reinstalling Windows. 0201704765P05222001

From the Back Cover
Featuring nearly fifty rules for best practice, EFFECTIVE VISUAL BASIC gives the working programmer concrete guidelines for des

Featuring nearly fifty rules for best practice, EFFECTIVE VISUAL BASIC gives the working programmer concrete guidelines for designing better systems and writing better code. Whether the focus is COM, databases, or distributed systems using MTS and COM+, this book offers proven, timeless solutions derived from the authors’ years of experience consulting and training in the VB arena.

EFFECTIVE VISUAL BASIC addresses general practices, from defensive programming to error handling and object-oriented design. In addition, it covers the critical issues in working with COM: interfaces, compatibility, and class design. Rules for building multi-tier applications are followed by a section on best practices for programming the Web. This book also addresses databases and effective data access, among the most important uses of VB.

Highlights include:

• Sound programming practices and object-oriented design principles, as applicable in VB.NET as in VB6

• Writing code that runs correctly in both MTS and COM+ environments

• Improving scalability by not necessarily configuring all your components

• Using XML, IIS, and ASP in Web applications

• Designing classes for efficient database access

The product of a wealth of practical experience, EFFECTIVE VISUAL BASIC enables readers to advance their skills and become more effective software developers.

0201704765B04062001

About the Author
Dr. Joe Hummel is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Lake Forest College, a trainer of .NET for DevelopMentor, and an avid sailor. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine, and has been working with DevelopMentor and Visual Basic since 1993. Joe lives in the Chicago area with his wife Marybeth, their two dogs, and their sailboat.

Ted Pattison is an independent contractor living in Los Angeles, California. Ted has worked in the software industry as a developer and educator since 1990. His primary focus over the last decade has been teaching software developers how to use technologies and tools associated with Microsoft's development platform. Ted is the best-selling author of Programming Distributed Applications with COM+ and VB 6.0 (Microsoft Press, 2000) and is a regular contributor to MSDN magazine, where he writes the Basic Instincts column. He also plays in the notorious Band on the Runtime along with David Chappell, Don Box, George Bullock and Francesco Balena. Go to SubliminalSystems to find out more about the services that Ted can provide to your company.

Justin Gehtland is the director of information software at DevelopMentor, where he also teaches VB/COM+ and Web Client Development courses. Justin Gehtland is also a consultant specializing in middle-tier and data application work. Justin has been working with Visual Basic since 1994 and is a coauthor of Effective Visual Basic (Addison-Wesley, 2001). Doug Turnure is an instructor at DevelopMentor and an occasional speaker at software conferences. Through his company, Aggelos Incorporated, Doug provides services to help companies develop and deploy software solutions. Brian A. Randell is an instructor and researcher at DevelopMentor specializing in COM+ and VB. Brian is also a senior consultant at MCW Technologies, a Microsoft Solution Provider.

0201704765AB07212003

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Customer Reviews

Watered down version of the Transactional COM+ Book
This book is a somewhat condensed version of Transactional COM+ by Tim Ewald. However, this book is much better in summarizing (and reinforcing) the important issues when developing VB/COM+/IIS applications as compared to Transactional COM+ which does indulge in gratuitous details too often. Effective Visual Basic is definitely not for beginners, rather, it makes sense only if you've repeatedly wondered why COM+ works the way it does. Rule 3-4 also gives a good understanding of why stateless objects aren't always good. If you ever wondered why Singletons are not good in the COM+ world (or why you cannot stick COM object references into the ASP Session Object) then Rule 3-2 explains it all. This book is a must for anyone designs and implements scaleable COM+ applications. Many of the generic COM+ concepts apply whether you plan to use C++ or VB.

Development does it again
If any of you are familiar with Developmentor you'll understand why this is an excellent book - all of the authors work there. This isn't a book for beginners, but once you get past the fundamentals this book has numerous best practices that will save you a lot of time (ie. if you had to figure them out on your own). This is real world stuff that works - not theory. By the way, the other books I've read in this series are also very good.