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A Sample Scenario Using the Samsona Bank Teller Project |
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The branch manager at the Second Bank of Carrollton is pleased with the application you delivered. She only noticed a few minor details to change to improve teller productivity, and she was willing to look past the few bugs she noticed. Overall, the project was a success. She shakes your hand. It's a good thing I didn't listen to that other programming consultant who berated Visual Basic as a toy language that would never create anything of worth. I admit I was a bit wary of Visual Basic, but in hindsight, I'm glad I gave it a shot. Thank you. |
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You grin, having heard other statements about Visual Basic that have become irrelevant now. I'm glad that he isn't working here anymore, you say, feeling confident. |
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She raises an eyebrow. Well, I didn't mean to imply that she was gone. Gulp! I just didn't listen to her when I made this judgment. Actually, our corporate bank office is going to hire her on as a permanent employee, and we hoped you would spend two or three weeks training her and her staff of 15 programmers. They will extend the application to work at all of our branches. Sometimes, they can be a funny buncha little competitive, but all in all, they're great to work with. Some are C++ programmers; others are a mix of COBOL and Visual Basic programmers and one Pascal programmer. |
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The weeks of training the programmers were grueling, to say the least. A couple of the C++ programmers chuckled about having to learn Visual Basic, although another was happy to leave the memory management nightmares of C++. One of the COBOL programmers wondered why people were moving to the inferior PC platform when the mainframe was so much more reliable (and on some points, you agreed with the underlying sentiment). The Visual Basic programmers had only recently worked with earlier versions of the language so were awed by all of the new and confusing things you were able to do in the newest version. |
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There were arguments among the trainees about some of the topics you discussed. A senior C++ programmer walked out on a couple of training sessions, frustrated. Later, one of the Visual Basic programmers informed you that the C++ programmer had strongly recommended that Visual Basic not be used, claiming that no serious programmer uses it. The programmer had frequently complained to the team leader, who was also a Pascal programmerand the one who advised the branch manager against Visual Basic. However, the other Visual Basic programmers had reassured the branch manager that Visual Basic had matured immensely and was quite capable of handling very complex business applications. They also said that Visual Basic had gotten wide industry acclaim, including positive comments from the C++/Ada-inclined world of object-oriented programming. |
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