Issue: 2002 - March/April

Rod Paddock - March April 02 Editorial

Lauren Clarke argues that effective collaborative software development—especially for distributed teams—requires robust source control: she explains core versioning concepts, practical benefits (rollback, diffs, branching, sharing, deployment), and gives a how-to for Visual SourceSafe while evaluating SourceGear’s SOS Collab for remote access and integrated project tools, concluding that adopting automated version control is indispensable for team productivity and reliability.

In this article, John Petersen explains how Visual Studio .NET facilitates seamless interoperability between the legacy COM technology and the modern .NET Framework through COM Interop. He demonstrates how developers can easily invoke COM components within .NET applications and expose .NET classes to COM clients, enabling integration of existing investments with new features. Using practical examples like Microsoft Outlook automation and a custom Performance Monitor clas...s, Petersen shows how to build, reference, and use components across both environments, emphasizing that leveraging both COM and .NET together offers a powerful, flexible development approach.See More

In this article, Alex Feldstein explains the fundamentals of cryptography and demonstrates how developers can leverage the Windows CryptoAPI to add robust security to their applications without deep cryptographic expertise. Feldstein outlines key concepts such as symmetric and public-key cryptography, hash functions, and digital signatures, and emphasizes practical implementation using a COM wrapper class to simplify CryptoAPI usage. By providing sample code in Visual Fo...xPro and VBA, he shows how to encrypt and decrypt data efficiently, making industrial-strength encryption accessible for securing sensitive information in software projects.See More

Testing SQL Server is an often-overlooked area of the software development process, because programmers primarily place testing focus on code residing in the middle tier or the client desktop, rather than the database. However, as SQL Server databases become a more important component of applications, they cannot be left out of the developer's testing process. An important place to start, to ensure your code works the way you want it to, is with SQL Server configuration....The focus of this column is to examine issues dealing with testing SQL Server 2000 databases using SQL Server's built in language, Transact-SQL, as the primary testing tool.See More

Microsoft .NET brings many important advances to the software engineering world.We believe that Windows developers everywhere have reason to celebrate the arrival of .NET, but Visual Basic developers should be the most ecstatic. We get true inheritance, structured exception handling, and a state-of-the-art IDE?but, perhaps the coolest thing .NET provides us as VB developers is the Framework Class Library (FCL). To commemorate the release of .NET, we thought we would pres...ent what we consider to be the top ten most useful, utterly awesome (and coolest) classes bundled inside the .NET FCL.See More

In this article Markus Egger surveys 20 often-overlooked productivity features of the Visual Studio .NET IDE—from the customizable Start Page, dynamic help and flexible window layout to IntelliSense, macros, clipboard ring and advanced search—showing how these tools and granular options empower developers to tailor the environment, streamline coding tasks, and boost efficiency, while encouraging exploration and extension via macros or add-ins.

In this article, Kevin McNeish explains how UML sequence diagrams document the time-ordered message exchanges that implement use-case logic, describes their core elements (objects, lifelines, messages, focus of control), and shows step-by-step how to create diagrams (including object creation/deletion, recurrence, color/notes) using a checkout example; he argues sequence diagrams clarify object responsibilities, reveal unnecessary interactions, and improve design of proc...ess-intensive application logic.See More

Daniel Leclair reviews xCase 6.01 as a cost-effective, full-featured desktop data-modeling tool that now offers improved forward/reverse engineering, broader DBMS support (including built-in Visual FoxPro), faster performance, and enhanced diagramming, making it a strong alternative to pricier packages; he notes remaining quirks (UDF handling, export limits, strict relation detection) but concludes the improvements and responsive vendor support make xCase a highly recomm...ended solution for everyday database design and maintenance.See More

In his article, Rob LaMora highlights the growing complexity of software and the resulting usability challenges due to a widening conceptual gap between users and designers. He emphasizes the importance of user assistance—both visible and interactive interface elements—as a key component of user-centered design that enhances user experience and productivity. Drawing on models like Microsoft's Inductive User Interface, LaMora advocates for thoughtful design, clear communi...cation, and iterative user feedback to create more usable software. He concludes that prioritizing user assistance is essential for software success in today’s competitive market.See More

David Stevenson surveys the trajectory of technology and brand adaptation, tracing Memorex’s shift from audio cassettes and data tapes to modern media and flash solutions, while paralleling the excitement and uncertainty surrounding Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET launch. He contrasts hype with hands-on experience, urging readers to test new tools as they become available and to trust practical usage over speculation. The piece also promotes CODE Magazine’s evolving distr...ibution, the DEVX partnership, and community participation, inviting readers to engage with ongoing innovations and future-oriented resources.See More