The Art of Programming with Visual Basic
reviewed by David Foskey

Visual Basic makes programming easy and, more particularly, makes bad programming easy. This book is well described by its subtitle, Techniques for writing solid code that's easy to maintain.

It is one of the few computer books that one might willingly read from cover to cover. It might even cause the occasional smile, but does assume proficiency in VB. Warhol writes from the experience of one who has struggled to support unstructured and undisciplined applications: "... if you do not adhere to consistent standards in your application setup, naming conventions, form design, and coding, you're going to have an unmanageable application that will be a maintenance disaster".

The author points out that the MS Programmer's Guide for VB 3.0 lists conventions for form and object names, but those conventions are consistently ignored in the guide's examples and other books. He puts forward conventions for variable names; for example, fs_employee_id is declared at form level (its scope) and it is a string (its type) and has a descriptive name.

He strongly argues the use of global routines to ensure consistency in coding, to reduce code, to relieve the drudgery of rote programming, and to encourage code re-use. Global routines also make an application run faster.

Use of a template form is recommended to ensure consistency in all forms and controls. The template form is set up with all defaults agreed for the project/ organisation; for example, colours, font, and point size. An example of all controls is added to the form, and when a new form is required you use the template, deleting and copying controls as required.

Anyone who develops in Visual Basic should read this book, even if some of the specific ideas are rejected. Warhol's war stories are worth heeding by anyone about to embark on a multi-programmer project. All but the most experienced of programmers should benefit from at least some of his tips.

The HTML Source Book, Second edition.
A complete guide to HTML 3.0
reviewed by Carol Daniels

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) may not be the most popular bandwagon on the infobahn, but it's certainly in the top ten. If you don't believe me, check out the traffic on a newsgroup like "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html". The number of postings in this group and the intensity with which issues are discussed rivals that seen in groups frequented by American conspiracy theorists and groups with names not spoken in polite society.

Another measure of interest in HTML is the number of books on the subject you'll find on the shelves at your local bookstore. Interest in HTML is driven by the popularity of the World Wide Web, not just within computer circles, but in the general community as well.

The concept of the Web has caught the interest of many who previously wouldn't have recognised the on-ramp to the infobahn if they got knocked over by a improperly switched packet. Whether the reality of the Web lives up to their expectations is another topic entirely.

More importantly, The HTML Source Book is not for them. Nor is it for designers, in the traditional sense of graphic designers. So don't be fooled by the cover illustration - which features the very swish Palazzo di Teodorico in Ravenna, Italy - into thinking this is a designer's book. You won't see another colour illustration until you work your way to the outside back cover, some 688 pages later.

This is not a coffee-table book. Your friends won't be flicking through its pages as you steam the milk for cappuccini. Unless they are geek-boys and geek-girls, that is. Then they probably will ooh and ahh over the HTML Source Book, because this is a serious HTML resource.

On the other hand, you shouldn't let the seriousness with which Graham approaches the subject scare you away. It really is a book for beginners, but it's for beginners who are interested in developing a serious understanding of HTML - who may be newcomers to HTML but are not computer newbies.

I could be reading too much into it, but I believe it's significant that this is one of the few books on the subject that doesn't include a CD-ROM of software, "kewl" links to hot-sites and a swag of mind-blowing 16.8 M colour images.

What it does have is a reference section at the end of nearly every chapter. In each of these you'll find all the information required to get what you need. Yourself. Which I suspect is the point. After all, if you are serious about HTML you'll already have some - if not all - of the software you'll need. And you'll know how to retrieve anything you don't have. When you do, you'll have the latest version, which is unlikely to be the case with any pre-packaged software collection.

Graham doesn't shy away from detailed explanations of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the syntax of Universal Resource Locaters (URLs) or gateway programs. His approach is structural and functional. His belief in the importance of understanding the way things work is encapsulated in this paragraph from the book's preface:

"A tool may be easy to use, but usually requires skill and training to be used well. This is certainly true of the tools involved in preparing and distributing information via HyperText documents and Internet HyperText servers. Preparing well-designed, useful, and reliable Web resources requires an in-depth understanding of how the tools that deliver these resources work and how to use them well. The intention of this book, as of the first edition, is to help you develop this understanding."

Graham gets right down to business too. He assumes you have already mastered your computer and won't go all trembly at the idea of a command line, so there's not a lot of hand-holding or spoon-feeding.

This shows in Graham's concern with explaining why things are done the way they are and the implications of doing them differently, rather than just telling you to "point and click". His focus is often on explaining what you should think about, or consider when you are making decisions about HTML documents. It's obvious right from the start Graham expects readers to use the knowledge he has distilled into his book to make informed decisions, based on their communication objectives. The importance of communication objectives driving design decisions is a strong theme running through the book. Graham presents a rich framework with which you can evaluate different options in HTML design against your own communication objectives.

All browsers aren't just any browsers

Another underlying theme is that we should aim to design pages for all browsers. And there is a significant difference between designing for any browser and for all browsers.

How to design each page so it presents a consistent message when displayed on all browsers is something more web page designers should consider when creating their pages. If you've gone to the trouble of creating the content, why sabotage your communication efforts with a page that is only viewable by a fraction of those that visit.

This is an important - but often neglected - concern for web page designers, especially those from a print-design background. It's easy to get carried away producing a page that looks fantastic on your browser but collapses into gibberish when viewed on another.

Unlike page layout for print, HTML is not WYSIWYG. What you see is dependent on your browser. What your visitors see will depend on their browser and how they have configured it. A well-designed web page will conserve the logical and hierarchical relationships between elements - get those wrong and your message will bet lost in the transition.

As Graham works his way through the various design elements he is scrupulously careful about demonstrating the consequences of using an element in each of the standard browsers.

HTML isn't a static discipline

Standard HTML (what you can and can't do and still get a equivalent representation on standard browsers) is constantly changing, even as you read this review. Graham has allowed for this, including current (1996) standard HTML and experimental HTML features in the book. He also includes HTML 3 incompatibilities with HTML 2.0 and HTML 2.0 compliant browsers. So consider the book an investment that will pay dividends for some time to come.

HyperText documents are intrinsically different from printed documents. Masters of the craft will understand the strengths and weaknesses of HyperText and use HTML to exploit the strengths and minimise the weaknesses.

The HTML Source Book would be overkill for someone who wants to develop a single home page. It's more for people who want - or need - to work with collections of documents. If that sounds like you and you have even the most modest desire to become a master of the HTML universe, you'll want this book on your bookshelf.

If you'd like a taste of HTML learning, Ian S. Graham style, try his online tutorial. It's located at http://www.utirc.utoronto.ca/htmldocs/newhtml/htmlindex.html

An Australian mirror site may be on the horizon. If/when it becomes reality, you'll read about it PC Update.

Like many publishers, especially those that publish computer books, John Wiley & Sons has a Web site. It's located at http://www.wiley.com.compbooks/

Silicon Snake Oil
reviewed by David Kennedy

Silicon Snake Oil should be compulsory reading for all computer users and abusers. If like me, you wonder what you are doing alone in a darkened room on a sunny Sunday, bathed in the ghostly glow of a non-interlaced monitor, Stoll may help you. He wonders, too. Moreover, he positively invites such reflection. Rarer still, he is a computer user who is prompted to ask the sort of questions you can't answer at the help desk. And along with the anecdotes about stars and speleology, Stoll poses some welcome challenges. Computer networks are a public danger. "They isolate us from one another and cheapen the meaning of actual experience. They work against literacy and creativity. They will undercut our schools and libraries." Far from deserving the unreserved hype bestowed upon them by the fast-talking rhetoricians of industry, commerce and government. Computers, Stoll argues, demand a far more critical appraisal.

An astronomer by profession, Stoll is a long-time computer user. His credentials are impressive. This man has built computers, managed networks and written programs to interpret data about Jupiter gathered by a space rocket. Then there's his classic, The Cuckoo's Egg. He was even playing virtual reality games in 1976. These are not the ramblings of a technophobe.

Virtual reality? Now there's an oxymoron for you. Can it exist? Isn't one of the damn things enough? But this is not the main paradox Stoll pursues. What bothers him most should be of concern to all of us. Does the networked computer really live up to the increasingly extravagant claims made on its behalf? Are we really all on our way to becoming jolly little members of a vast international community? Stoll doubts it. Indeed anyone who has ever trolled though the abuse hurled through newsgroups or even suffered the waspish put-downs of BBS operators will attest that hostility thrives in Cyberspace. It may even help you to be nasty when you can't see the recipient of your message. Virtual community? Well yes, there is a type of community out there, Stoll readily concedes. People have even got married "on" the Internet. But as he wryly observes, "Mating with your modem should be approached cautiously. As with a woman's chance of marriage in Alaska, the odds may be good but the goods may be odd."

Is the book dead? Stoll convincingly adduces the example of Project Gutenberg, an ambitious attempt to put all literature online. Not only are the shelves sparse on the cyberlibrary, they seem unlikely to be added to unless we come up with some significant copyright and privacy innovations. He also makes a good case for suspecting that only unreliable research makes it into cyberspace. Intellectual property is too precious to be put online. Who knows, we may even get over these huge hurdles. But to what end.

If the online library is pie in the sky, so too are many other claims made for the Internet. While we may be well-equipped to deal with hype, Stoll argues reasonably that the cost of going online may be larger than we ever thought. The money spent on computer equipment is money not spent on books. Or librarians. Or teachers. Worse, software everyone is using today will be on the scrap-heap in ten years. Who still has a 78 at home? The very data Stoll so painstakingly collected and stored a decade ago is unreadable because the software's obsolete. Read this book. It's disquieting. It's irreverent. And it asks some important questions.

Clifford Stoll's Home Page: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/

Gutenberg Elegies (excerpts): http://www.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bdbirk.htm

Reprinted from the July 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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