Design Pattern

[Klas Pettersson]

Hello everyone!

I'm going to build a system which has a lot of different parts which can be eg. customers, resources, articles etc. Everything, probably, stored in an Access Database. I'm relative new to Visual Basic and I wonder which strategy that would fit for this project. I want the application to be easy to upgrade and insert new parts as the progress goes on. I have thought about having a MAIN part of the application which is consists of and EXE. Then the smaller parts of the system, eg. customers, in different DLLs. The MAIN part, the EXE file, will load the available parts every time the application starts. Then if I update or add a new part to the system. I can send the DLL and some smaller files to the user. What do all of you think about this strategy? What strategies would you recommend?

[MartinLiss]

Don't worry about sending "smaller files to the user". When you upgrade it's a simple matter to send out an installation package that contains a new exe and any new files. What you do need worry about however is preserving the user's data, and to do that you should design your application to have two databases, one for static program values such as list and combo box values, program defaults, etc., and the other for user data such as invoice details. That way you can upgrade the static database when needed and (usually) not have to worry about affecting the user's data.

[Klas Pettersson]

Thankyou for the advice.