html and beyond ~ xml

phase 2 has come and gone. the integration project ~ done. not quit exactly as set out in specs … but i produced a functioning application with a back end connection to sql server. i eliminated the class library in favour of coding the user interface. to ensure meeting the tight deadline for the project. and then i moved onto HTML. cool ~ me loves HTML. i had a blast making a website ~ for marks! haha. it felt like playing and getting credit for it. i could do this for a living. and now … now i’m into XML. it should have been scripting, but, a matter of book availability meant i had to take the XML course first. whatever. i had the example of blogger in my head wrt to xml. its amazing how much one learns simply from curious exposure to something.

the design stage never ends

not really. in a way. i mean, don’t we forge ahead with a view to how we could enhance or improve any little thing along the way? the art of design lies in working out for oneself the details that one requires in order to begin a project. i mean, some details, once worked out and implemented, we cannot change. and so, we should consider carefully.

its sort of an iterative process. its sort of a process that involves all phases engaged in the brain at once. it cannot distill itself into phase components. not in my brain, anyhow. it all just ferments in there all at once. iteratively.

whew. well, it looks like i have just about survived another quarter of this programming/web development course of study. now its onto the fun stuff. yeehaw! now i think i wanna slow down. and enjoy the ride. more about the project for my next post.

so, what about the design phase?

do we need it? i mean, does anyone seriously sit down and spend hours creating all those wacky scenario diagrams, flow charts, and shit? ok. i wonder. coz, on one hand, i think its a load of BS. and on the other hand, i think the genius of any program lies in its design. how many times have you gotten to the tail end of coding your programme, and arrived at some glitch. a glitch you could have caught earlier in the process, had you only just attended to, followed through with and contemplated your programme’s design more thoroughly?

and ask yourself. does a house builder go out and get all the construction equipment as soon as he decides he’s building a house? what about a blue print? some sort of building plan? electrical? plumbing? it would seem an expensive and wasteful activity to approach house building in such a way. yet … so many of us approach program design that way. i wonder why?

and i wonder. why do we think we have to fit our design ideas into some pre-fab diagram? what if my neural pathways don’t produce cognitive output that fits neatly into those uml charts and diagrams? what if … my brain conceives a programming situation differently? its still design right? even if its not some pretty, prefab chart, like they show in the textbooks?

project: design a program~c-sharp front-end; sql server back-end

ok. so i have a windows form with 4 tab-controlled pages. each tab page related to a different function of the program. tab 1 ~ add a lease ~ 2 buttons and several text boxes. tab 2 ~ crystal report viewer. tab 3 ~ update lease ~ 3 buttons and several text boxes. tab 4 ~ make payment ~ 1 button, 1 check box and several text boxes. at the back end, a SQL Server 2000 database. no class libraries for this project. just windows controls and event handlers and ADO.NET controls.

ok. so. i am looking at the source code of a ’sample’ … something given to me to inspire my own creation. its deficient. lacking in some of the basic, stated requirements. and coded weirdly. like … each windows control – i.e. button – click event has the ADO.NET objects coded within it. i wonder, why not just attach the connection to the tab-click of the tab page to which it pertains? why repeat the same code for so many buttons? i don’t get it.

and what of an event handler that considers the whole audit thing? the audit thing being that, an audit table must get updated in the event of any changes made to the lease table can i attach an audit-related event handler to ‘add lease’ (submit) and ‘update lease’ (update) buttons? is that what i do to implement the auditing system?

and what about the whole void payments thing? the ‘make payment’ tab page has a check box for users to indicate whether they are voiding the payment. does void now become a new field in my payments table? this void field would take on a boolean/binary type – 0 for false or not voided and 1 for true or voided, right? that seems to make sense.