Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 [Paperback]

Deborah Kurata (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321320492 | ISBN-13: 978-0321320490 | Publication Date: March 2, 2007 | Edition: 1

“Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 is one of the few books that I’ve seen that lays the proper object-oriented foundation to make new Visual Basic.NET developers as well as VB6 veterans successful in moving to the .NET Framework.”

–Paul Ballard, President, Rochester Consulting Partnership, Inc.

 

“Deborah Kurata’s Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 is salvation for every programmer beached on the forbidding isle of .NET object-oriented programming. ‘Right this way,’ she says, leading you confidently into that vaguely menacing interior. Step follows step. Suddenly the daunting and unfamiliar become doable and commonplace. You’re productive again. My goodness, you’re actually enjoying yourself!”

–Ward Bell, V.P., Product Management, IdeaBlade, Inc.

 

“When is comes to advice on programming objects in Visual Basic, nobody could be better qualified than Deborah Kurata. She’s been doing Doing Objects since VB4, and she doesn’t let us down as we move our classic VB code to the Microsoft.NET platform. From initial analysis and design, through to the final implementation, you’ll find everything you need here to take on the Visual Basic 2005 development environment. This book is a must have for every VB.NET developer!”

–Kel Good, MCT, MCITP, MCPD, Custom Software Development Inc., (www.customsoftware.ca)

 

“I’ve long been frustrated that I couldn’t recommend a book on object-oriented fundamentals in .NET. Sure, there were plenty of books on OO syntax. But what good is explanation of syntax if you don’t already understand the concepts? At last, we have the successor to the Doing Objects series for classic VB, from which so many of us learned how to think about objects and object design, completely rewritten for .NET. If you’re a VB 2005 developer who needs to add object orientation to your skill set, this is the book you need.”

–Billy Hollis, author/consultant, Next Version Systems

 

“Deborah Kurata does her Doing Objects thing again! This is the newest book from Deborah which has been completely rewritten from the ground up for the Visual Basic .Net 2005 developer. Anyone needing a solid foundation in object technology, Visual Basic .Net 2005, and Visual Studio .Net 2005 should read this book. Deborah’s presentation of core topics such as class design, object state management, exception handling, events, data binding, validation, data access techniques, and many others is clear, concise, and direct. The clarity of the content, coupled with the hands-on examples make this book an easy read and a must have.”

–Ron Landers, Senior Technical Consultant, IT Professionals, Inc.

 

“Deborah Kurata continues her tradition of showing both new and experienced Visual Basic programmers the most effective ways to get their jobs done with object-oriented programming.”

–Ethan Roberts, Software Architect, Sundial Software Corporation

 

“As a VB6 programmer, it was a huge leap for me to go from VB6 to VB.Net; Deborah’s book helped me do that. If you’re trying to make that jump, reading this will enable you to do so with minimal pain.”

–Robin Shahan, VB Developer

 

The definitive guide to object-oriented development with Visual Basic 2005

 

Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 is the authoritative guide to object-oriented design, architecture, and development with Visual Basic 2005. Author Deborah Kurata is the original pioneer in building object-oriented applications with Visual Basic. In this book she continues to offer clarity and deliver best practices for using object-oriented techniques in Visual Basic 2005. She has been honored with Microsoft’s prestigious MVP designation for her expertise and contributions to the community.

 

Kurata begins with a concise introduction to core object-oriented concepts and the Visual Basic 2005 features that support them. Next she introduces a pragmatic and agile approach to designing effective applications along with an application framework. From there she walks you through the process of building the user interface, business logic, and data access layers of an application, highlighting key VB 2005 techniques and best practices. Kurata’s step-by-step “building along” activities provide you with deep hands-on mastery; your finished application can serve as the starting point for virtually any custom project. This book

 

• Shows how the tools in Visual Studio 2005 combined with a solid object-oriented approach can help minimize the complexities of software development and improve productivity
• Clearly explains the fundamental concepts of object development: classes, inheritance, interfaces, scenarios, and more
• Presents a pragmatic agile software design methodology to help analyze and design applications for the real world
• Covers building the user interface layer using a base form class, programmatic interfaces, and object binding
• Details building the business logic layer using a base business object class and validation rules
• Demonstrates how to build the data access layer using ADO.NET
• Provides best practices and tips for experienced .NET developers, those new to .NET, and for those developers moving from VB6 to .NET

Foreward

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to OO in .NET

Chapter 2: Designing Software

Chapter 3: Building Projects

Chapter 4: Building the User Interface Layer

Chapter 5: Building the Business Logic Layer

Chapter 6: Class Tools and Techniques

Chapter 7: Binding the User Interface to the Business Objects

Chapter 8: Building the Data Access Layer

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Deborah Kurata is cofounder of InStep Technologies Inc. (http://www. insteptech.com), a professional consulting firm that focuses on turning your business vision into reality using Microsoft .NET technologies. InStep provides premier software design, development, and consulting services to the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay area, and other locations nationwide. You can reach InStep at 925-730-1000 or at [e-mail].

 

Deborah has more than 15 years of experience in architecting, designing, and developing successful applications. She has authored several books, including the Doing Objects in Visual Basic series (Sams), Best Kept Secrets in .NET (Apress), and Doing Web Development: Client-Side Techniques (Apress). She also writes for MSDN and CoDe magazine (http://www.code-magazine.com/).

 

Deborah speaks at .NET user groups all over the country as a member of the INETA Speaker’s Bureau (http://www.ineta.org/) and at conferences such as VSLive, DevDays, and TechEd. For her work in support of software development and software developers, she has been recognized with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. After a hard day of coding and taking care of her family, Deborah enjoys blowing stuff up (on the XBox, of course).

 

Deborah holds degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire and an MBA from the College of William and Mary.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

Welcome to the latest in the series of Doing Objects books. This series started in 1995 with Visual Basic 4.0, when VB could first do objects. At that time, little had been discussed about using object-oriented design and development techniques with Visual Basic. To help improve that situation, almost half of each book in the series was dedicated to helping developers think in object-oriented terms and design an object-oriented application. The other half presented a full-featured solution for building an object-oriented application.

As with each of the other books in this series, this book is about designing and developing great applications for Visual Basic using object-oriented principles. However, today's Visual Basic developer is much more versed in design concepts, so only one chapter of this book is dedicated to design. The remaining chapters provide techniques for building an object-oriented application and a reusable application framework.

Unlike other books that provide reference-type information and short examples with no context, this book presents each topic in a logical sequence, illustrating the techniques by designing and developing a full-featured application. This allows you to readily see how each technique fits into your development activities.

This book also demonstrates how to build an application framework you can reuse in every application you build. With an application framework you can significantly increase your productivity and that of your team.

This new edition of the book was completely rewritten to use the features of Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework. It makes no assumptions about your experience with .NET. It provides tips for experienced .NET developers and those new to .NET. There are even some tips specifically for developers moving from VB6 to .NET.

Why Do Objects?

Everything in .NET is basically an object. You cannot really do anything in .NET without doing objects. But Visual Basic 2005 still allows you to create modules, and it provides default form instances. Thus, you can still pretend to code without objects. So why make the move to using object-oriented techniques in your Visual Basic applications?

• Objects help you think about an application in terms of real-world things, aiding in the design process.
• Objects define all their data and processing in one programming unit. All of the code having to do with customers is in one code file, all of the code having to do with products is in another code file, and so on. This makes it much easier to develop, test, and maintain your code and to manage the complexities of software development. It also simplifies multiprogrammer development.
• Objects allow for building an application framework with base form classes and base business object classes. Common code resides in these base classes and not within every form or code file. This can drastically reduce the amount of code you have to write, test, and maintain.
• Objects allow you to work with other high-productivity features in .NET, such as object binding.

This book expands on these topics to help you know when, how, and why to do objects in Visual Basic 2005.

Who Should Read This Book?

The goal of most Visual Basic developers is to get the job done. You have existing code to maintain, enhancements to implement, and new applications to write—all with limited time and other resources. You need to be as productive as possible. Learning a new version of your programming language and development environment takes away from that productivity. So you need a way to learn the new tools and techniques as rapidly and efficiently as possible.

This book is for developers who need to quickly learn the key features of Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework and incorporate the new techniques into their daily design and development activities. Specifically, if you are interested in learning how an object-oriented approach and these new tools and techniques can minimize the complexity of software design and development and improve your productivity, this book is for you.

I have many opportunities to talk with software developers at conferences, via newsgroups and e-mail, and through my consulting company. The key concern for many developers is how to come up to speed quickly on the many new features. Bookstores have shelves full of books, but it is hard to know where to begin, how the features interrelate, or even how to find time to do that much reading. The goal of this book is to provide details on the key features in one place and all within the context of designing and building a full-featured application.

This book assumes you are familiar with some version of Visual Basic, even if it is only a classic version like VB3 or VB6. It assumes you know how to write programming logic and put controls on forms. This book is not for people new to programming. Nor is it for developers who have never used a visual programming tool, such as Visual Basic. After you learn the basics, come back to this book to learn best practices for building great Visual Basic 2005 applications.

About This Book

This book begins with an overview of object-oriented terms and techniques. It then covers a pragmatic approach to application design, including the design of an application framework. The majority of the book details how to use the tools and techniques in Visual Basic, Visual Studio, and the .NET Framework to build great object-oriented applications.

This book is organized as follows:

• Chapter 1, "Introduction to OO in .NET": Basic object-oriented terminology and concepts are covered in this first chapter, including specifics on how these concepts are realized in Visual Basic. It also provides an in-depth discussion about the benefits of an object--oriented approach.
• Chapter 2, "Designing Software": When designing an application, you have many design aspects to consider, such as user interface, business objects, and database. Managing all these aspects is easier if you follow a design methodology. This chapter presents the GUIDS Methodology, a pragmatic approach to object-oriented design.
• Chapter 3, "Building Projects": This chapter covers the basics of building a solution with associated projects for the user interface, business logic, and data access layers. It includes a discussion of productivity enhancers such as templates and using the built-in Windows application framework.
• Chapter 4, "Building the User Interface Layer": The user interface of a .NET application is composed of two parts. The outside is the part of the application that the user sees and interacts with. The inside is the code behind the forms. This chapter shows you how to build both parts with reuse and changeability in mind. It also introduces base form classes and programmatic interfaces.
• Chapter 5, "Building the Business Logic Layer": The business logic layer includes all of the functionality of the application. This chapter details how to build classes with appropriate properties and methods. It also introduces base business object classes and -generics.
• Chapter 6, "Class Tools and Techniques": Visual Studio has many fun tools to help you build your application. This chapter covers the Class Designer, Object Test Bench, code snippets, and unit tests. It also covers more advanced techniques such as building master/detail classes.
• Chapter 7, "Binding the User Interface to the Business Objects": Visual Studio provides enhanced features for binding your user interface elements to business object properties. This chapter describes binding and details how to perform object binding. It also covers how to write code to validate user-entered -values.
• Chapter 8, "Building the Data Access Layer": Most applications require some type of data. This chapter details how to build a database. It then covers how to build a data access component that uses ADO.NET to retrieve and save data in a database.

"Building Along" Activities

It is often easier to learn by doing. So this book provides "building along" activities in each development chapter. You can build along with these activities to construct the sample application.

By the time you reach the end of the book, you will have a full-featured Windows application that demonstrates many of the techniques presented in this book. You will also have the basics of an application framework that you can reuse in all your applications.

In addition, each chapter includes a "Try It!" section. If you don't have time to build the entire sample application, you can download the sample code and extend several features using the "Try It!" sections. This provides a facility for you to practice what you are reading without the commitment of building the entire sample application. Note, that many of the "Try It!" exercises build on prior "Try It!" exercises to demonstrate how the techniques build on one another and work together to form a complete application.

What You Need to Use This Book

To work through any of the techniques, "building along" activities, or "Try It!" section exercises, you must have some edition of Visual Basic 2005. You can download the free Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition or use any other edition of these tools. In some cases the Express Edition does not provide a feature discussed in this book. These cases are clearly indicated in the text.

When you launch Visual Studio 2005 for the first time, you are asked to select your default development settings. The settings you select affect the names of many of the menu options, the layout of some of the dialogs, and other features of Visual Studio. This book uses the General Develop...

Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (March 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321320492
• ISBN-13: 978-0321320490
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,221,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for winform development, March 23, 2007

By 

Michael L. Mctaggart (Marina Del Rey, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 (Paperback)

This is a great book to learn how to build a VB win form app from start to finish utilizing a cohesive object oriented framework. It covers virtually every aspect from design philosophy, creation of the application tiers (UI, business and data), designing the DB and SPs, error handling, validation and host of other subjects.

The book is only 518 pages but it packs a lot of info. The concepts were presented clearly and they were easy to understand and implement; in addition there were quite a lot of helpful tips.

It happened that I was just starting an application while I was reading this book so I decided to go ahead and use her framework and a number of the design patterns - It worked very well, I found one minor error in the sample code and I made some modifications to implement some additional features but the code basically worked out of the box. If you do use her object model in an application and the business objects are based on database tables I would recommend purchasing Codesmith (a code generation tool) or a similar product before starting your project since creating the business layer is fairly code intensive. With Codesmith you can create her basic class structure as a template and it will generate the code for the business and data access layers based on the table.

Now that I have the first app under my belt I plan to use the framework on any future win form apps that I develop.

I highly recommend this book for lower intermediates to advanced developers; if you're completely new to VB this could be a little over your head.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like a finely honed detective thriller, February 19, 2008

By 

Stephan Onisick (Birmingham, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 (Paperback)

I have totally enjoyed this book. So much so that in my leisure I have opted to work through it a second time. Being a .Net programmer and just beginning to leverage the power object programming: I found the book exhilrating.
I never knew how she was going to pull together: like replacing hard-coded item for database tables.
My only disappointment was that the book ended a little too soon. I would have like to have to have seen somewhat more of a data-entry application.

Stephan Onisick; VB/SQL Consultant

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on VB.NET OOP to date, March 21, 2007

By 

David J. Graper (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005 (Paperback)

This is the best book on object oriented programming in VB.NET I've ever read, bar none.

Kurata's writing is so approachable (yet comprehensive) that reading this book was an actual pleasure. The example "Purchase Tracker" application "build along" she uses was especially well done - it illustrated key points very well with just the right amount of detail.

I disagree with the assertion that this is an advanced course in VB.NET 2005; I would contend that it is perfectly aimed at the huge "sweet spot" of VB programmers right now who've been transitioning to .NET and who've had to pick up .NET as best they can while being expected to keep up (or increase) the pace on their ongoing development projects. Get this book, read it over a week of evenings (it'll take you about a week or so of evenings to get through it with the examples), and you'll come out the end a significantly better developer.

If you're a working coder it'll be an interesting week too: each morning you'll get to work, look at your previous day's code, and immediately have ways to improve what you did just hours before.