Are naming conventions really necessary when programming?
There is a lot of debate over this topic. Are naming conventions really worth it? Aren’t they a hassle to learn and use? Can’t you code quicker if you don’t…
Issues and Consideration of GUI Development
What is a GUI? A graphical user interface (GUI) is an interface to a system that uses more than just text on the screen. It can use pointers (such as…
If the World is a Program
When we first learn geography we learn about how the world first came into existence. Some say that the Earth owes it’s existence to a massive supernova while some others…
A Bit of Logic: Understanding Bytes and Bits
If you haven’t heard already, a byte is a sequence of eight binary units. These binary units are called bits. While this is no great secret, the functioning of bits…
Introduction to Game Programming Or the Appaholic’s Ten-Step Program
Hello there, and welcome to my little article about making computer games. I assume that you’re reading this because you are at least a little interested in writing games. If…
Overview of Contract Programming
There are lots of avenues you can take to becoming a contract programmer. But before we explore some of those, you need to find out what you intend to do.…
Why do I Want to Use a JOIN Clause?
Recently a friend of mine asked me why he should use a JOIN statement rather than adding extra criteria to the where clause. It’s an interesting question, and I thought…
Why Visual Basic is like McDonalds
Why? At McDonalds you can order items the way you want them, and they are delivered FAST! But, you don’t have a completely open menu. You can only order certain…
Treatment of NULLs by Oracle & SQL Server
Oracle & SQL Server behave subtly differently when processing columns containing nulls. Consider the following series of SQL statements: CREATE TABLE tempone ( creditlimit NUMBER(6)); -- Oracle CREATE TABLE tempone…
8 Steps for Optimizing and Improving Your Visual Basic Code
Here are 8 steps to improve the readability, debug-ability and speed of your Visual Basic application. 1) Use Option Explicit (and the Require Variable Declaration setting) for ALL your modules…