[AccessD] Access to VB.Net

Yes, I know you don't actually modify their code, but we hand code
business rules into our data entities.  They can't be generated by
CodeSmith because The rules differ from entity to entity, so they have
to be in the abstraction layer and preserved when the class is
regenerated.  And I have nothing against time saving tools.  I just
think users need to understand exactly what that code is doing, and the
best way to understand that is to write code yourself, explore the
various options for doing things, and try to figure out why the tool
might do it differently.  I question whether the generated code is
written "better", any more than a production line widget is any "better"
than a hand crafted widget.  It is certainly written more quickly, but
my experience suggests that only means cheaper, not necessarily better.

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Robert L.
Stewart
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 6:17 AM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access to VB.Net

Charlotte,

I am teaching a special interest group, Database and GUI Design. We are
using the Codesmith/netTiers combination and most of the people in the
group have limited experience in .Net. What I have found is that it
actually does so much that it is difficult to get your arms around all
that it does do. It uses the Enterprise Library to base itself on. While
it is huge, it is also extremely feature rich.

All you really have to learn is to program the GUI. Do you worry about,
or even know how Access saves a record?
No, you call the method to do it.

Dim svcName as new tblNamesService
Set svcName = tblNamesService.getall()
dim entName as tblNames
...code here to load the row (entity)
txtFirstName = entName.FirstName (for example) ...and edit it
svcName.save(entName)

That is an example of the simplicity of using the combination of
Codesmith and netTiers to do a data layer. Now if you want to write all
the ADO code for the connection getting the data and manipulating it, be
my guest. Personally I don't have the time or energy to replicate
something that is actually written better than I could.  Same with
Clipper years ago, I used a code generator called Zachery. It wrote much
tighter code than I ever did. I was on their beta team for about 3
years.

And no, you don't modify their code. They give you an abstraction layer,
a class that inherits the generated class, where you can make changes
that do not get erased each time you regenerate it.

Robert


At 11:13 PM 9/10/2007, you wrote:
>Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:41:10 -0700
>From: "Charlotte Foust" <cfoust at infostatsystems.com>
>Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access to VB.Net
>To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
>         <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID:
>
<F55048AF7E974F429BB24597D7355EEA4BA9F9 at INFOSERVER04.infostat.local>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
>Robert,
>
>I have to say that tools like Codesmith are very useful, but they're 
>more useful if you understand what they're writing.  They can also be 
>very stupid (same like computers, natch) so you need to be able to 
>modify the code intelligently, since one size rarely fits all, 
>regardless of what the code writer thinks.  LOL
>
>Charlotte Foust


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