Developer Career Tip #0001---Clarifying Microsoft’s Certified Solution Developer Certification

Developer Career Tip #0001

Clarifying Microsoft’s Certified Solution Developer Certification

Recently I received an email from a reader seeking a clarification on Microsoft’s Certified Solution Developer Certification. In it, she asked if it’s possible to achieve the MCSD by concentrating only on Visual Basic.

If you’re considering getting Microsoft’s Certified Solution Developer Certification, you might be happy to know that it is possible to achieve this certified developer status by concentrating only on Visual Basic.

To become a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), you must pass three core examinations: Desktop Development exam, a Distributed Development exam, and Solution Architecture exam. You must also pass an elective examination.

For the Solution Architecture Examination, you have no choice---you must take the grueling Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures (70-100).
Within Desktop and Distributed development, there are a variety of ‘tracks’ that you can pursue: Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual Fox Pro. If you intend to pursue the VB ‘track’, you can take the Visual Basic 6 Desktop Examination (70-176) and the Visual Basic 6 Distributed Examination (70-175) to fulfill your three core examination requirements.

As for the elective examination, there are about twenty or so to choose from, including the Visual Basic 5 exam.

Yes, that’s right, Visual Basic 5. Visual Basic 5 is still a supported Microsoft package, and I work with many companies that are still using it. The Developing Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 (70-165) examination is available to take as an elective---and if you are like many Visual Basic programmers who have been using it for many years, you may find this examination to be a piece of cake.

Many MCSD candidates are under the mistaken impression that once you have taken two Visual Basic exams you cannot take another Visual Basic exam to fulfil your elective requirement. This is incorrect. In fact, if you check out the Microsoft Certification Web Page, they even have an example of how you can achieve the MCSD exactly as I’ve described here.

http://microsoft.com/mcp/certstep/mcsdfaq.htm

Programming Tips & Tricks #0001---Working with someone else’s code

Tips & Tricks

Working with someone else’s code

The scenario (all too familiar):
You have a new job, and your first programming assignment is to modify a Visual Basic program that was written by another programmer who has left the company. The program is hard to follow. It has no comments, all of the variables are haphazardly named, and all the forms and controls were left with their default names, such as Form1, Form2, Command1, Option1, etc. You’re overwhelmed.

This is not an unusual feeling. In fact, you can feel the same way about your own code a year or so after writing it. So I emphasize these precautionary measures to ensure easy comprehension by others:

1. Option Explicit is coded in all of your modules (this ensures that Visual Basic enforces that all variables are declared before using them)
2. All variables and controls are named using a formal naming convention (i.e. Hungarian Notation)---this makes modifying the program somewhere down the road much easier
3. Code that is repetitive in nature is consolidated into procedures and called from within the program
4. Every module has comments describing its major functions and features
5. Code that is anything out of the ordinary is also commented

Sounds great, but how do these ‘rules’ help you modify someone else’s code? Unfortunately, I’m suggesting you correct the mistakes of the past.

Of course, before you do this, you need to get your supervisor or project leader to ‘buy into’ that plan. Obviously, if he or she is expecting the program modification to be made in about an hour, so taking a week to clean the code and make the modification won’t make you a hit in the Employee cafeteria.

However, I can almost assure you this won’t be the last time this program is modified. Biting the bullet now and cleaning it up will make things much easier on the next junior programmer who finds himself in the uncomfortable position of modifying this code.

Once you have the go-ahead to proceed, the first thing to do is to ensure that Option Explicit is coded in the General Declarations Section of every module in the program. -- if it’s not, add it manually -- and then run the program. Guess what? The program no longer runs. Why?

Coding Option Explicit will cause VB to mark, as a syntax error, every instance of a variable that hasn’t been declared---potentially lethal errors in a program. At this point, you need to identify the variables that haven’t been declared, and explicitly declare them, with a defined type (i.e. Integer, String, Date). While you’re at it, this wouldn’t be a bad time to rename variables using either Hungarian Naming Convention, or a naming convention in use at your company. Using Visual Basic’s Search and Replace features can make this task a lot easier than it sounds.

With all of the variables properly declared and named properly, now is a good time to name those forms and controls in a meaningful way. Keep in mind that when you change the name of a control, the code associated with it can appear to be ‘lost,’ finding its way into the General Declarations Section. To avoid this, first rename any event procedures associated with the control manually with the new name of the control—then bring up the Properties Window for the control and change its Name property there.

At this point, make sure the program runs okay. You’ll find you now have an understanding of how the program works -- so much so, that you should be able to identify code that can be centralized in a subprocedure or function. Along the way, insert comments in your code explaining what’s going on. Write those custom procedures and place them in either a Form Module or a Standard Module (every Visual Basic program I write has one).

Now, with the Visual Basic program nicely sanitized, it’s time to code that simple modification you’ve been asked to make. Hopefully it will be a piece of cake.

Fan Mail---March 4, 2000

Just received a very nice piece of fan mail about my books in which the author describes the 'novel' approach of my book

I would just like to say that I enjoy your books on Visual Basic. I have two and am going to buy another soon.

These are the first programming books that I have ever read that aren't extremely boring.

The book is more like an interesting novel because of the way you do the dialogue instead of just spitting out pages and pages of boring, hard-to-follow facts.

I bought the first book in the series about beginning Visual Basic so that I could learn Visual Basic and get a summer job doing programming. I am not even done with the first book, but I still bought the book on objects in Visual Basic.

I used to program in Q-Basic back in the ancient days of un-user-friendly DOS and a year ago, I made an attempt at learning Visual C++, but I now know more in Visual Basic than in both Q-Basic andVisual C++.

Thanks!

Danny

My book is outselling Harry Potter

For one day anyway, my book

Learn to Program with Visual Basic 6

is the number one selling book on Amazon--and Harry Potter is second!

Just published my first book!

I'm happy to announce that I've just published my first book,

Learn to Program With Visual Basic 6
Wrox Publishing
ISBN 1902-745-000

It will be published under Wrox's ActivePath imprint.

You can order copies online at Amazon using this link...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590591518/ref=nosim/professorsmileys

Volunteer Group--what happened to it

Someone just asked what happened to my Volunteer Group?

Question: What happened to your volunteer group---I thought it was a wonderful idea.

Anser. My volunteer group was a great idea

http://www.johnsmiley.com/volunteers.htm

Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be able to solve the distance problem---people working on a single project that are geographically dispersed have some big hurdles to surmount.

I've read recently about a similar program, however, and I think they're doing a better job of administering the program than I had the time to spend. Check them out at:

http://www.vbdesignteam.com

Just a bought a stereo at Sears

I just bought a stereo at Sears for $170.77.

It's my first large purchase.