John W. Colby
jcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Feb 26 08:48:45 CST 2003
Marcus, I started programming in the early 80s and in the late 80s ended up in Turbo Pascal which went OO. It was extremely powerful (for the day) yet strongly typed unlike the C languages of the day. I purchased all of the Borland toolboxes, the application framework etc., bought books and really got into the whole inheritance thing I worked in that until I moved to Access in the early 90s. While Access was a huge step up in drag and drop design functionality, and radically different (and extremely powerful) in the use of the event driven paradigm, it was a huge step backwards on the OO side since it had nothing at all that even remotely resembled inheritance. .Net is almost like old home week. It is a highly structure system, with a huge base framework that provides instant functionality like I have never seen before, with true inheritance, with this new XML thingy built right in, with access to data from anywhere. The biggest problem I foresee is simply that the vast scope makes learning it a chore. But is so incredibly powerful, it is simply amazing. I was reading a tech paper last night where they built up XML docs in a word processor, saved them to a file (just for demo purposes), then simply used a built in property of a built in framework class to load the file and bind to that data. But not just bind as we know it. They bound the data to properties of the form. Any property of any control (and forms inherit from the control class so I'm told) can be bound to data. Which makes possible things like fore color or back color or font a property of the record. Painless storage of size / location of forms. Painless user modification and storage of color preferences. If you can imagine it, you can store it in a table and drive it from there. But not just tables. The objects that actually load and expose the data can use XML as easily as they can use tables. They can use arrays. The arrays can be simple arrays of values, or arrays of objects - CLASSES for example, and you can be binding a control property to a property of the class. This stuff is truly awesome. Built in collection functionality for stacks, queues, arrays that you can just dynamically add new members to (not to mention your simple collection). And anything can be sub classed to add your own functionality. Not just interface inheritance, but true implementation inheritance. Do you want a collection that stores an object, with built in checking to prevent storing anything but that object? Just subclass the collection class and over ride the .add method, typing the object input parameter. Done! As can be seen, I am truly psyched about this thing. I did a little programming in VB (I wish it had been more now) but it was so difficult to get at data (and I do databases) so it just didn't offer enough to make it worth the switch. .Net on the other hand is an order of magnitude more powerful, and getting at data is second nature. And as if all that isn't enough, you can pick your language. Amazing stuff. John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-admin at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-admin at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Marcus, Scott (GEAE, RHI Consulting) Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 8:10 AM To: 'dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com' Subject: RE: [dba-VB] OT: .NET - Data grid syncs to combo John, Less than a year ago, I decided to convert an access application to .Net. Within one day, I had a working prototype in both VB.Net and C#.Net. It was extremely easy. You are right in that the combo changes the data set which in turn affects all controls linked to it. Just for kicks, I also bought Borland C++ and did the same thing (within a day). My conclusion is that all the major tools these days are offering click and create applications. It's just a matter of picking the technology you think is most marketable. I don't think you can go wrong in learning .Net. I'm still torn as to what technology to pick (although the next version of .Net is coming out in April and is just a $29 upgrade for previous .Net owners and includes the capability to make Pocket PC.Net applications). I'm very interested in discussing the techniques developers are using to convert Access applications to .Net. Hoping to find intelligent useful discussion on .Net, Scott Marcus -----Original Message----- From: John W. Colby [mailto:jcolby at colbyconsulting.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 8:32 PM To: AccessD Cc: AccessD - VBA Subject: [dba-VB] OT: .NET - Data grid syncs to combo I have moved my billing database BE to sql server, hooked up my existing Access FE and continue to use that as I play with the data in .Net. In the meantime, in VB.Net I created a bound form last night (or I think it's bound anyway, not positive). It was using an OLEConnection, which tonight I switched to an SQL connection. It's supposed to be faster. The form simply displays the state table (all fields) in a data grid. You really can't get much simpler than that, though I suppose for something like a state table it would suffice. I decided to try and figure out how to use a combo box to select a record in the data grid. Dragged and dropped a combo to the form, hooked the datasource property to the same data source I was using for the form / data grid. Set the display member (the field displayed) to ST_Abrev (the 2 char code), and the value member (the PK of the table) to ST_ID (the PK of the table). Opened the form, selected the state in the combo and the data grid moved the record selector to that state. Man was THAT easy! So the combination of everything allows the combo to just act as a record selector without all of the code required in Access. Not knowing exactly what is happening, I have to assume that the combo selecting something causes a record selector pointer in the data set object to point somewhere. Since the data grid is using the same data set object, the data grid displays the newly selected record. Just a guess of course. This stuff is way over my head. But so easy (if I just understood what I was doing). Cool beans man! John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com ---------------------------------------------------- Is email taking over your day? Manage your time with eMailBoss. 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