Beginning Visual Basic 6 Application Development - Softcover

Slovak, Ken; Boutquin, Pierre; Bock, Jason; Poremsky, Diane; Reynolds, Matthew; Sharkey, Kent; Whitney, Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861001096 ISBN 13: 9781861001092

Publisher: WROX Press Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

Microsoft Visual Basic is an extremely popular programming language in which it is increasingly important to understand an array of different technologies and how they interact with each other to really exploit its power and flexibility. This book introduces the reader to the concepts of the application design cycle, showing how to design, code, test, deploy and maintain an application. Technologies covered include UML, VB coding, the MS Solutions framework, MTS, ASP, XML and SQL Server. Each technology is explained through explanation and code illustration, clearly demonstrating how they tie together and may be distributed over a Windows environment.

About this title

Review

Getting started with Visual Basic is easy, but for serious enterprise development, you need to master a lot more. Beginning Visual Basic 6 Application Development puts enterprise-level programming into the hands of intermediate VB users with a capable tour of all facets of multi-tiered development. This book is all you need to start using server-side objects and Web-based interfaces with VB.

What's best here is the comprehensive, yet approachable, guide to all the Microsoft tools, APIs and standards needed for using VB to create large enterprise-level applications. This means looking at the three tiers for application partitioning--user, business, and data services--along the lines of Microsoft's recommended practice. The authors cover all the steps needed to design and code applications in today's corporate environments, along with a solid introduction to UML diagrams. Wherever possible, they make use of tools (like the VB Class Builder) to speed up development, and the title is chockfull of actual screenshots to help you along.

These project design techniques are illustrated through an online banking application. The authors walk through all the steps required to build it on all three tiers, from the underlying database schema (created in SQL Server 7 and then accessed through stored procedures and ActiveX Data Objects), plus business objects for simulating basic banking transactions. Despite some high-level material, this text is anchored in a practical, very hands-on sample application that you can build and deploy on your own.

Later sections turn to the user interface or presentation layer. First, the application is built using a traditional standalone client, and then the book presents a Web-based HTML interface generated with Active Server Pages (ASPs). A final section looks at XML for sharing data between applications.

It's hard enough to use VB with objects for the beginner, and mastering all the standards (with such acronyms as UML, COM+, SQL, ADO, MTS, HTML, and ASP) is even tougher. Beginning Visual Basic 6 Application Development covers all the necessary terrain and gives intermediate developers what they need to tackle serious enterprise projects with VB. --Richard Dragan, Amazon.com

Topics covered: Introduction to enterprise applications: scalability, reliability and high availability; Microsoft Distributed InterNet Architecture (DNA) basics, tour of Microsoft tools and standards (MTS, IIS, ASP, COM, MSMQ, UDA, SQL Server, COM+), case study for an online banking application, software development methodologies compared (the traditional "waterfall" approach, the Microsoft Solutions Framework, MSF, and the Rational Unified Process), object-oriented design tutorial, Visual Basic classes and the Class Builder tool, COM, ActiveX and DCOM basics, Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), adding transaction support to VB components, deploying VB objects, Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagrams, logical and physical database design, tutorial for SQL and stored procedures, querying and updating databases using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), building the data and business services tier, GUI design, creating VB forms for users and administrators; testing, deployment and maintenance; HTML and ASP tutorial, and XML used with Visual Basic.

From the Author

A Technical Interview with Ken Slovak

Beginning Visual Basic Application Development by Pierre Boutquin, Diane Poremsky and Ken Slovak - Wrox Press Ltd

1. 'Beginning Visual Basic Application Development. The title is quite vague, what is this book all about?

This book teaches you how to design and build distributed applications using the latest design and development methods. Unlike many books that are about distributed application development, this one teaches you how to specify, analyse and design a large application in addition to how to implement and code it, and initially requires only a basic understanding of Visual Basic.

2. Who would benefit from reading it?

Anyone who knows a little Visual Basic and wants to learn how to systematically design and develop large distributed applications; students, intermediate level programmers, and programmers who want to learn how to develop applications to a structured design using the Universal Modelling Language (UML), would all benefit from reading this book.

3. How does the book approach application development?

First we introduce the basics of VB development and the methodologies that we use. We then teach the necessary technologies, such as component development, transactions, Unified Modelling Language, and SQL Server, before embarking on the development of a detailed case study. Finally, we deploy and enhance the case study application. Each chapter follows the steps that a real-world development project would take from the proposal stage to project completion.

4. What's the case study all about and why did you pick it?

The case study is an online banking application. It was chosen because it is a good example of a distributed application that can run on one or more computers and use transactions to maintain data integrity. It is a perfect illustration of developing an n-tier application.

5. What are the main design features?

The main design features are a 3-tier distributed application model,.centralized control of transactions using MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server), stored procedures implementing business rules and processing in the SQL Server application database, and specialized interfaces for users and administrators. Each of these features is implemented using UML to provide a structured design model for the application.

6. You mention enhancing the case study - what's that doing?

We cover extending the application by Web enabling it using ASP and enabling inter-application communications using XML. The design of the case study makes extending the application very easy and these enhancements will show the reader how to consider future enhancements for a development project during the design and development of an application.

7. Everybody is talking about XML - what's that?

XML is a markup language, related to the well-known HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that makes communications between applications easy and convenient. Much of the new development of Web applications and applications that need to communicate with other applications in a standardized way is being done using XML.

8. What software do you need to get the most from the book?

The recommended software is Visual Basic 6 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server (a desktop edition can be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site), Windows NT or Windows 2000, and a PWS (Personal Web Server) for Web enabling the application.

9. What do you enjoy about writing books?

I enjoy writing books because I enjoy teaching people about different aspects of programming, and because I usually learn a lot about what I'm writing about just in researching and organizing a book. It makes me a better developer.

10. Now the hard work is over are you getting chance to have a break?

I've been too busy to take much of a break, but I do get to use my boat more often now and have been enjoying my swimming pool during these hot summer days.

11. What current projects are you doing apart from books?

I'm currently working on a number of development projects for commercial applications.

About this edition

• Publisher: WROX Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1861001096
• ISBN 13: 9781861001092
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 834