Editorial
[author : Tim Kientzle] #Edito
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Features
Visual Development Tools for Java
[author : Steve V. Yalovitser]
Steve shares his experiences working with a trio of Java visual-development environments-Rogue Wave's JFactory, Symantec's Cafe, and Autodesk's HyperWire.
Visual Installation
[author : Al Williams]
Al uses Sax Software's Setup Wizard to set up a multimedia training tool. He then takes a peek at Eschalon's Setup Pro, Jetstream's InstallWizard, and InstallShield's Express Professional.
Writing Delphi Components
[author : William Stamatakis]
A Delphi component is simply a class with some value-added features for representing the class, and for manipulating attributes of the class. Bill shows you how to create a component that can be used in any Delphi application.
The Libero Development Environment
[author : Pieter Hintjens]
Libero is a language-independent visual-development environment that lets you design programs as state diagrams. Pieter uses Perl with Libero to develop an HTML preprocessor.
Image Processing and Visual Basic
[author : Don Parrish]
Don details his favorite tricks for squeezing more performance out of Visual Basic when using it for image plotting. His techniques improve disk access and image quality.
Adding Power to PowerBuilder
[author : Baylor Wetzel]
Baylor presents an awk-like PowerBuilder nonvisual user object for string parsing that provides integration with databases and graphical objects.
COLUMNS
Ramblings in Real Time
[author : Michael Abrash]
Michael examines the three main types of 1/z span sorting, then discusses a sample 3-D app built around the technique.
DTACK Revisited
[author : Hal W. Hardenbergh]
When it comes to tape-backup systems, it's easy to get all twisted up. Hal describes the options and features to consider when choosing a system.
20/20
[author : Al Williams]
Al develops several cooperating Delphi programs that utilize a shared-memory component that, in turn, utilizes Win32 synchronization to keep the memory consistent.
Software and the Law
[author : Marc E. Brown]
The U.S. Patent Office recently released guidelines for issuing patents for software and display icons. Marc analyzes those guidelines to determine what they really mean to software developers.
The Software Engineer
[author : Allen Holub]
One of the main strengths of the object-oriented approach is that you can make changes to the structure of an object without affecting any of the code that uses the object.