Month: May 2020

Setting up SQLite turned out to be a lot easier than I thought, though I first went through a lot of false starts. I downloaded Microsoft’s System.Data.SQLite, but I couldn’t create DataSets in Designer. I installed and uninstalled a lot of things, but finally, it seemed the only thing I needed was a driver, just like with Access! The only free version I found is published by a company called DevArt. They have a ton of database drivers and developer tools. Best of all, they offer a free version of their SQLite driver. It’s called dotConnect for SQLite Standard. It’s possible that you can installed DevArt’s dotConnect from within Visual Studio, but I downloaded it directly and installed it. You’ll have to create an account at DevArt to download the driver, but hey, free software! Once you’ve installed DevArt’s dotConnect, you will be able to access SQLite databases, but you…

As you know, the database world is divided into SQL databases and other SQL databases. That’s only a slight exaggeration. Even Microsoft Access understands SQL. There are two broad kinds of SQL: server-based and client-based. Server-based SQL is software that runs on a server. You send the server an SQL query, and the server returns the results to you. The SQL server software receives, manages, and queues up all the queries sent to it by all the users accessing the database. It acts as a traffic cop, a central dispatcher. It makes sure, for example, that two people don’t change the same record at the same time. The disadvantage of server-based SQL is that it runs administrative access to the server, which may not be available. Client-based SQL runs on the client computer, that is, your computer. In that case, your SQL software opens the database like Excel opens a…

The internet is full of tutorial, examples, and answers to questions, but it’s very hard to find a complete applications built step by step. I’ve not found any, in any case, so I thought it would be fun and satisfying and perhaps even helpful to document building a complete application, step by step — sort of like how you can watch videos on YouTube of people building homes step by step. I’ll clarify up front that I’m not a professional programmer. But I got my first computer in 1980, a TRS-80, and quickly learned BASIC and Z-80 assembly. I’ve been hooked ever since on the idea of making computers help us solve problems. I’ve used almost a dozen languages, including specialized ones that worked only under one narrow platform, and some of my software has been used in real business settings. I’ve read a lot about software development and try…