UPDATE: Isolating business logic from presentation logic

In an earlier entry, I asked some questions regarding application architecture. After some very interesting discussions on the mailling lists, I’ve come to the following realizations:

• Forget what you did in VB6.

• Microsoft has suggested design patterns for .NET.
• I need to read, read, read, read, read.

A starting point for the design patterns can be found here.

Rich client vs. Web client

Adam Bosworth discusses that web interfaces are generally preferable to rich client interfaces. Adam’s blog entry links to some other bloggers who are commenting on the same issue.

Many programmers are working on internal business applications. Many of these business applications have to provide real-time access to information necessary for data entry. Many of these apps are using technologies such as COM+ events to monitor business activity and raise alerts to people who are using the system. Many of these apps have business “dashboards” that give the user many different views of their data with just a few clicks of the mouse.

With current browser technology, many of these features, which users demand, are not as responsive as a rich client. Some things are not even possible with current browser limitations.

My opinions are based on the current state of browser technology. I am always open to new stuff. If somebody creates a web interface that meets the most important needs, I’ll consider it.

Hall of Fame parade

I’ve been asked to play with a trumpet ensemble on a float for the Football Hall of Fame Grand Parade. We’ve been asked to wear black dress pants, long-sleeved dress shirts, and they are going to provide us with bow ties.

I sure hope the temperature isn’t too hot. The parade kicks off at 7:30 am and I’m told our float is near the front of the parade, so there’s a good chance we’ll have a temperate temperature.

Thought control

As reported yesterday, I watched a Microsoft technical chat yesterday with the VB.NET design team. A few of the participants jokingly wished for a new feature in .NET to type what they think. This morning, I read in this article that we’re actually making progress on that front.

First Microsoft chat

I just finished lurking on a Microsoft technical chat that was hosted by the members of the VB.NET design team. It was an eye-opening experience for this meager VB developer. I really need to do a lot of reading before I’m even going to begin to comprehend what features I should use as I start doing work in VB.NET.

Meeting etiquette

Paul V writes about a meeting etiquette issue.

We have somebody in our office who knits during the weekly status meeting. Is this as bad as reading your email?

Open-access hardware?

Is this where our computer systems are headed?

ScrappleFace: Microsoft Touts New Open-Access Strategy

Funny dialog

Sean ‘Early’ Campbell & Scott ‘Adopter’ Swigart’s Radio Weblog suggests a new dialog that should be included in the next Microsoft operating system.

This reminds me of an outside consultant who worked at our company as a project manager for a couple years. We had some serious time constaints on the project and the project had some very complex business scenarios. He would get a little upset when the developers started recommending a bunch of code to protect the users from entering invalid information. We might have a data entry form that had four combo boxes controlling different aspects of the business object. If each combo represented three choices, the form would allow 81 theoretical combinations. However, certain combinations were not valid due to business constraints. Either one of the options needed to be completely disabled or the choices needed to be restricted.

Rather than design a complex state machine to handle the validation, he would argue that the user should know better (which I know was just a defense he used to get the project done on time). He would then say, facetiously, that we would have code that detected when a user chose invalid combinations. When they did, points would be deducted. When they reached a certain deduction level, we would show a dialog that said, “We have determined that you are too stupid to use this application. When you click OK, your computer will be shut down.”

What is Enterprise software?

iunknown.com: What does “Enterprise” mean?

John Lam tries to define “Enterprise” software. One aspect of his definition is:

Enterprise applications are used by more than one person concurrently

This seems to be a pretty broad statement, IMO. Our two outside salespeople share a sales database. Does this mean it’s an “enterprise” application?

I think the term “enterprise” should also include a size component. Architecturally, though, I suppose the issues may be the same whether it is two users or 2000 users.

More weather problems

My wife and I went to see the DCI show that was to kick off the Pro Football Hall of Fame Festival. We had to drive through torrential rains and flooded streets. We heard on the radio that the show was delayed by an hour. After we parked, we ended up sitting in the car for over an hour as we watched the huge flag at Massillon Paul Brown Tiger Stadium stand straight out from the flagpole.

We went in and discovered that our seats were in the top row right on the fifty yard line. In my opinion, we had the best seats in the house. After sitting for about an hour, the show was canceled because the rain wasn’t going to let up.

The Canton Bluecoats did put on a show in the high school gym. It was hot and sticky, but the group still put on their concert in full uniform. I know that I would have been dying out there. Of course, I’m twice the age of most of the participants, so I was dying just sitting in the stands.

Next year, I’m going to order tickets right away again. Hopefully, we won’t get washed out.