[AccessD] SPAM-LOW: Skill Zones

Great analogy!

Personally, I would compare coding without classes like using Excel to
store your data.  It works, it functions.  Then you discover
Access......

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 11:56 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] SPAM-LOW: Skill Zones

Of course I agree with Charlotte, when you finally wrap your mind around
classes, suddenly they 
become like a nail gun vs a hammer.  But you have to really get there
and that is the problem most 
people have.

Imagine that you live a mile from town.  You have always ridden a bike.
It seems like that works 
quite well, after all you have always ridden a bike, and you cannot
really imagine why you would 
need more.

Then your friend lends you a car while he's on vacation for the month.
Asks you to feed his cat and 
dog, check on his mother in the next town over.  you drive, you run
around, you haul stuff for his 
mom, you suddenly see that a car is a different breed of transportation
from a bike.  A bike works, 
but it is just a different breed.

Until you actually use it, day in and day out, you just never
appreciated how different it was and 
what it allowed you to do.

There are things that you simply cannot reasonably do without classes.
But until you have tried to 
do those things you cannot understand what they might possibly be.

Let me give you an example, caching data.

I use tables where the data doesn't change from month to month.  These
tables have hundreds of 
records, and yes, I could just set up things to seek etc to go through
and find data in these 
tables.  But I USE these tables to control whether specific tabs are
displayed, whether certain 
subforms are allowed to load and so forth.  I use these tables
PROGRAMMATICALLY, in loops in 
programs where decisions are made etc.  To try and seek to specific
records then get certain fields 
would be several orders of magnitude slower than to simply load each
record into a class, then load 
those record class instances into a collection, keyed on a common lookup
field (what you would Find 
Next on or SEEK on).

Record / record supervisor.  Once I have these I can get at any field
that I need (or specific 
fields that I need all of the time) and I can get at it INSTANTLY.

Collections of classes keyed on a search data are something that you
cannot even understand until 
you do it.  Once you do it, the light bulb goes on.

Goto http://www.databaseadvisors.com/downloads.asp and click on the
zipcode demo.  You cannot do 
this kind of thing without classes.

Click on the Openargs demo.  You cannot do this without classes.

I could swear I had another demo up there for SysVars.  That is another
thing you just can't do 
without classes (it is the cached record idea).

I would never say that you can't be a very good, very successful
developer without classes.  I would 
say that once you understand and use them you will be in an entirely
different league, because what 
you can do suddenly changes.

I would also say that until you truly understand classes you will NEVER
transition smoothly to .Net.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

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