Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series) (Paperback)

by Paul R. Reed (Author)
Key Phrases: distributed implementation, generating code, data persistence, Remulak Productions, Public Function, Construction Phase (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Written for those with just a little Visual Basic experience, Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML provides a comprehensive guide to bringing VB up to date with coverage of component-based multitiered development using software engineering techniques and UML modeling tools. This book achieves an excellent mix of accessibility, theory, and practice for enterprise VB development.

There are a number of goals in Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML, and this text succeeds on several levels. Besides introducing the author's own Synergy software development process, the book also provides a thorough tour of today's UML for creating design documents, plus Microsoft's DNA solution for component-based distributed computing in VB. By centering on tools-based design and coding (using Rational Rose as the modeling tool and the VB environment itself), this book is able to show off UML for design and then the steps for building and deploying data-aware VB components on the Windows NT platform.

This step-by-step tour from initial project proposal and planning to elaboration and construction phases never gets bogged down in software engineering jargon. The author provides his expertise of what works and what doesn't. (For instance, he offers a generic VB component for returning records regardless of your chosen database connection strategy.) The book culminates in a multitiered VB database for a hypothetical music store. A final chapter shows how to create ASP-based Web interfaces with the same components.

This title strikes just the right balance between covering essential tools and design strategies and can be a valuable asset for VB programmers who want to learn component-based Internet development using their favorite programming tool. This book is all you need to bring your knowledge of traditional client/server VB into the world of enterprise development, including how to build Web-based interfaces. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Visual Basic and UML overview; the Synergy Process Model (a software design process); the Rational Rose modeling tool; VB as an object-oriented language; object design, including interface inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism; UML support in VB; project inception and planning; use cases and pathways; designing classes (relationships, attributes, and operations); prototyping; screen design; sequence; collaboration; state and activity diagrams; usage matrices; Microsoft's Distributed interNet Architecture (DNA) overview and n-tiered application basics; database fundamentals; database translation and data access services; building VB components from UML, DCOM, and MTS basics; using transactions, VB, and ASPs for Web-based interfaces.

Product Description
Provides practical guidelines and techniques for producing quality software designs. Presents an overview of software architecture basics and a detailed guide to architecture design tasks. Reveals the insights and best practices of the most skilled software architects in designing software architecture. Softcover. DLC: Application software--Development.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (November 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201615797
• ISBN-13: 978-0201615791
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #561,188 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #76 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > Basic
  #91 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > UML

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical, bound to be a classic., January 28, 2000

By	Tom (Va) - See all my reviews

This book is one of the most useful books I have ever owned. Buy it, read it and place it in your inventory next to the other classics on the top shelf because you will reference and recommend this one again and again.

Process and structure are increasingly important as VB rapidly moves into the backoffice of corporations and becomes the de facto development platform for more and more business critical applications. Couple this with the fact that the Microsoft-based technology landscape causes us to rethink our application domain on a daily basis and process and industry accepted approaches become an absolute necessity.

Mr. Reed outlines a pragmatic approach to using UML within a process (Synergy process) with VB development better than anyone else. The book covers UML techniques in the proper depth without making the reader muddle through pages of useless text. The example outlined in the book is solid and provides an understandable story anyone can follow and instantly apply to their own situation.

Mr. Reed's experience lends creditability to the concepts in the book and helps the reader understand how to apply these concepts. He distils the copious topics of UML and using a development process into a single book that would otherwise require the reader to work through several books in order to understand these topics.

Hopefully the next version will be in hardback in order to endure its years of use.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a practical look on a practical book for VB/COM developers!, December 3, 1999

By	Ravindra Tadwalkar (SFO) - See all my reviews

Subject: FYI: Review of ISBN 0-201-61579-7 Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 15:42:30 -0800 From: Ravi <[e-mail]> To: [e-mail] CC: [e-mail], [e-mail], Grant Larsen <[e-mail]>, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

"Developing apps with VB and UML"- a practical look on a practical book for VB/COM developers!

After reading this classic down-to-earth book (I bought it at @OOPSLA99, Denver), I was quite happly able to dive in. The book starts with a philosophical theme called "synergy" process, yet another RUP based process model, I thought.

But as I started reading further, I felt I should recommend every systems analyst to read from chapter 2 until chapter 7. I liked the appraoch of creating event tables to get to use cases.

Salient "analytical" pointers here:

chapter 3: "event lists/tables", where an event = subject (actor) + verb + object

chapter 4: dissection of the Ivor'y definition of use case; thinking ahead in time of deployment componentized architecture.

chapter 5: use case template (looks similar to Alister Cockbern's one); static modeling- particularly "analysis classes" illustrated

chapter 6: "screen structure charts" (as a diagram "type") should be a good addition to UML, with some work (-e.g. web UI, Say Grady, Cris?)

chapter 7: usage matrices; dynamic modeling (-I like when he says "happy path" of use case, as in `sequence diagram of the happy path' ;-)

And as I got to the chapter 8 "technology landscape", the architect in me got hooked onto the rest of the book, since the architectural layers started shaping up. I thought I should recommend every architect and developer (VB or otherwise) in our company to read chapters 8 onwards.

Salient "techie" pointers here:

Chapter 8: some "anti-patterns" (pp. 194-5) for out-of-process communication in COM.(May be when someone writes a book for EAI modeling audience including me and surely Grady and Cris, s/he will have to scale this beyond DCOM).

Chapter 9: design of a persistance framework layer for data access; mapping class design to relational design, rose-scripting for DDL gen.

Chapter 10: services layers need for applying the infrastructure for CBD.

Chapter 11: layers in depth; Rose/VB RTE -interestingly I am toying around with Rose2000 on cleaner RTE and got some food for beta team.

Chapter 12: -- do -- + code change management in VB for enhanced requirements/change requests (VB was known to defy maintenance in past!)

Chapter 13: continues constructing distributed implementation with DCOM/MTS

Chapter 14: Internet based design issues (-maybe redo screen structure charts now, supplementing with Jim Conallen's web modeling concepts;-)

The only glitch in this techie portion of the book is that the author does not mention patterns. Patterns gurus will forgive him for that, I suspect, especially after the trial of the GoF at OOPSLA99 conference at Denver ;-)

Now after reading this book, how can I influence our 40+ developers? We are a Microsoft shop, using UML successfully, say 8, on a scale of 1 to 10. We follow a homegrown process based on RUP, to develop software for the global transportation industry, specializing in the supply chain execution space. (-this sounds like a business plan ;-) While reading this book; I kept comparing what we do, how we do that, and where we need to go. I am reasonably clear now.

I am sure, like me, after reading this book, you too, regardless of any industry background, will recommend it to COM developer as a compulsory reading after the first compulsion- the astounding UML user guide by Grady.

Thanks, Ravindra Tadwalkar Chief Architect, Thru Transport Systems Intl, San Francisco

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential to serious VB development, November 28, 1999

By	DOUGLAS M KLINE (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This book is essential for anyone who has dabbled in VB and is looking to build large scale robust systems. Too often VB is viewed as a toy language for developing small GUIs. Larger VB systems are often brittle, with the blame put on the language. In most cases, these brittle systems should be blamed on inexperienced developers with no design and no plan. This book shows you how to design systems in VB, document the system using UML, and make your project a success. Don't waste your money on more reference-type books. Buy this one instead.