Professional Design Patterns in VB .NET: Building Adaptable Applications [Paperback]

Tom Fischer (Author), John Slater (Author), Pete Stromquist (Author), Chaur G. Wu (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590592743 | ISBN-13: 978-1590592748 | Publication Date: September 15, 2003

This book is not a treatment of the theory of design patterns. We show design patterns applied in real-world architectural scenarios so that you can see them in action and see the benefits that they bring. It explains why it's worth spending time building design patterns into your applications, even though this may seem at odds with Rapid Application Development.

After a fast-paced introduction to design patterns, the core of this book consists of three case studies, which show how design patterns are applied in each of the main tiers of an application: the data, business, and presentation layers. These case studies flesh out the reader's understanding of design patterns, and show how they can be employed in real scenarios that will be instantly recognizable to all VB .NET programmers. The book also shows how design patterns can be used in conjunction with .NET Remoting, so that they can be applied not just within individual tiers, but across them as well. Since many VB .NET programmers may not be completely familiar with UML, we also provide a UML primer as an appendix.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is aimed at experienced Visual Basic developers who are moving into object-oriented VB.NET, and are considering using design patterns in their applications. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Tom Fischer: Tom Fischer's career spans a broad range of technologies, working with some of the most prestigious consulting firms in the Twin Cities. His certifications include the Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), and Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA).

As a Microsoft Certified Teacher (MCT), Tom also helps teach other developers about the latest .NET tools and technologies.

John Slater: John Slater is a project manager at Management Reports International in Cleveland, OH. At MRI he is currently developing applications for the property management industry. Right now, he is working on several projects using .NET development tools and .NET Enterprise servers..

Pete Stromquist: Pete Stromquist is a consultant at Magenic Technologies (one of the nation's premier Microsoft Certified Solution Providers), specializing in web-enabled application development using Microsoft tools and technologies. He has spent the last several years architecting and developing the following types of applications: intranet content management, web-enabled training and testing software, B2B and B2C e-commerce, and web-based telemetry and logistics. He has complemented his VB skills with several other technologies such as: XML, XSL, COM+, IIS, ASP, and of course .NET. Pete also enjoys teaching and presenting on .NET technologies. He has a Mechanical Engineering background, and received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Minnesota.

Chaur G. Wu: Chaur Wu currently works for Trend Micro Inc. as a senior software engineer. He started software programming before he was old enough to qualify for a driving license. The first program he wrote was a bingo game – in assembly code on an 8051 single chip. As a research assistant in his graduate study, he implemented a wavelet-based video compression algorithm for a traffic surveillance system sponsored by Boston City Department of Transportation. He helped solve a blurred image problem using inverse filters and other image processing algorithms for a fiber optics components client, and he's been involved in much larger projects. Wu also developed a program in C++ to simulate the movement and geographical coverage of GPS satellites. His technical interests include distributed software systems in Java, COM, and .NET, generative programming, software design, and neural networks.

Product Details

• Paperback: 345 pages
• Publisher: Apress (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590592743
• ISBN-13: 978-1590592748
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Development > .NET

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily understandable Design Patterns in VB.NET, October 2, 2002

By 

Maxime Bombardier - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Design Patterns in VB.NET: Building Adaptable Applications (Paperback)

For those of you that hears about Design Patterns but don't know C/C++ and are having issues finding good ressources to adapt Design Patterns in the VB area, this is the book for you.

Rather than attempting to compete with 'Design Patterns : elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software', from Addison-Wesley, they extend it so that VB developers can learn how to understand design Patterns and apply them inside our applications.

The book covers the following common patterns :
Singleton, Abstract Factory, Factory, Adapter, Facade, Bridge, Composite, Decorator, Proxy, Observer, State, Strategy,Template.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent content for Patterns, March 7, 2004

By 

James Axsom (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Professional Design Patterns in VB .NET: Building Adaptable Applications (Paperback)

This book illustrates, explains and simplifies design patterns. It is very easy to read, follow and understand. Although all patterns are mentioned in the book only a select few are detailed in the beginning of the book. The remainder of the book provides information how design patterns are used in the n-tier architecture, such as the data tier, middle tier and presentation tier.

The books offers one of the most fascinating concepts in developing the presentation tier, called MVC, a.k.a. Model, View, Controller. MVC decouples the user interface from the form/control events on a form and placing this logic in a controller class or classes. The controllers have full control of the model aspect of the framework where the controller puts data in the view or the user interface from the model.

MVC uses patterns within its framework. For example the controller is made of algorithms and therefore is a strategy pattern. The relationship between the view and model is an observer pattern, while the view is a composite and the relationship from the view to the controller is a factory pattern. Using the factory pattern the controller is created, uses the data in the model and the view is updated via the observer. The book however goes into to detail how to forgo the observer pattern by using data binding with ADO.NET and a data grid. The observer pattern in MVC is not explained, other than in the beginning of the book as the pattern itself as opposed relating to a framework.

You are not limited to just these patterns within MVC. I have used the visitor pattern, the mediator pattern and the command patterns within my controller classes to achieve different methods to communicate and alter the data within the model. It is my opinion that as long as the View, the Model and the Controllers are decoupled from each other then you have achieved MVC.

With excellent code and UML examples, I suggest owning this book as I find myself studying it time and time again attempting to master MVC and implementing best practice with design patterns. Another good book I highly recommend is C# Design Patterns.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good on theory, lousy on implementation, June 17, 2004

By 

Karl Houseknecht (Palmyra, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Professional Design Patterns in VB .NET: Building Adaptable Applications (Paperback)

There's definately some good explanation of design patterns in this text, but if you're looking for best practices in .NET coding, you're going to need to look elsewhere.

The book begins with a chapter that explains the basic premise behind the most common creational, behavioral and structural patterns. This chapter is excellent and provided me with the most insight into how I could change the way I develop applications using patterns.

The next chapters deal with how to implement these patterns in the data tier, middle tier and presentation tier. The examples are illustrative, if nothing else. BEWARE THEIR CODING TECHNIQUES! The authors actually implemented the disposal of unmanaged resources like database connections inside of a Finalize() method!!! With the .NET Framework's implementation of automatic garbage collection, this is the absolute last thing you'd ever want to do with an unmanaged resource. They should have used the IDisposable interface.

I'll give them three stars for their treatment of the topic, but these guys are lousy .NET coders.