| A college English professor of mine was once describing different types of novelists: "A traditionalist author usually orders his story beginning-middle-end, a modernist might reverse that order, and a post-modernist would only include two of the three parts." Unfortunately, authors of computer programs don't (usually) have the luxury of such flexibility. Although it is true that with a visual programming system such as Visual Basic it is easy to just sit down and start hacking out code, with most computer programs this is not a good idea! Like anything in life, a program that is built on a shaky foundation can be plagued with problems. Your program's purpose is to solve a specific problem, and the design determines how it will solve that problem. It is very important to spend time on design before you start coding. Investing a significant amount of time in program design will benefit both you and the users of your programs. How Design Fits into the Programming Process The life of a computer program generally begins when an end user asks someone to create it. From the end user's requirements, the programmer must determine how the program will accomplish the intended goal. Although the purpose of this book is to teach you the technical aspects of creating programs with Visual Basic, we would be remiss if we did not mention another important step: the design of the program. Regardless of the programming language used, the following types of questions must be addressed when designing your programs: What are the specific tasks the program needs to perform? Who are the users of this program? What will the user interface (screens) look like? What type of architecture should I use (Web-based, client-server)? What will the databases look like?
The ideas presented in this section are by no means all-inclusive, but rather one set of general guidelines. Your technique, of course, may be totally different. |