[AccessD] To framework or not?

You can own a car, which consists of every single part of the car, just sitting in a pile (or even 
neatly stored in parts bins on shelves.  Technically you own a car but that car doesn't inherently 
do anything, and in fact can't do anything.

Or you can have that same car, with every part assembled where it is supposed to go, sitting in your 
driveway.  Now the car can do things.  Because the parts are assembled where they are supposed to 
go, when you turn the key electricity starts to flow.  A solenoid kicks in, extending a starter gear 
to the engine and starts causing the engine to rotate.  Electricity causes the fuel pump to pump 
gas, sparks start to fire and the engine roars to life (hopefully).

Same car, just in a different state.  Instead of a pile of parts, it is a system of parts which can 
perform work "all by itself".  Pressing buttons can cause seats or mirrors to move.  Moving the 
gearshift can cause a chain reaction that causes the transmission to start working.  Pressing the 
gas pedal causes the engine to rev, and if the transmission is engaged the transmission starts to 
apply power to the drive shaft.  Teeny little stimuli applied by a user causes massive state 
changes.  But the user doesn't have to intentionally do massive things, just teeny things.

Some people use libraries, which are collections of functions.  Each function does something but in 
general it is just a pile of functions.

I write frameworks.  When I turn the key, (call a single initialization function), code starts to 
execute.  SysVars Load, security information loads about groups, users and users in groups and 
caches that info to structures in the framework.    A login form opens and forces the user to login. 
  As the user logs in, the framework takes the user's loginID and looks it up in the user cache, 
then runs the password through an MD5 hash function.  The resulting hash code checks whether it 
matches the password hash from the user cache.  If so then the framework saves a pointer to the 
logged in user into a variable in my framework object.  If not the user is told to try again.

Once the framework is initialized, it is sitting there monitoring what is happening in the application.

When a form loads, a form class is initialized.  It immediately checks its security (the groups that 
can open the form) against the logged in user's security groups.  If any of the groups match, the 
form continues to load (doing still more framework kind of stuff) otherwise the user is informed 
that (s)he is not allowed to open that form.

Same library, just in a different state.  Instead of a pile of functions, it is an assembled system 
that can perform a work all by itself.  I apply teeny little stimuli and the framework responds 
entirely automatically.  Loading three lines of code in the form causes an entire validation 
functionality to occur.

-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com