>Hi all,
>
>Reading Alan Cooper's latest book (who also authored "About Face..." which was so universally acclaimed by the VFP community) I came across the following in "The Inmates are Running the Asylum":
>
>"Some software developers have arrived at the unfortunate conclusion that modern rapid prototyping tools - like Visual Basic - are effective design tools. Rather than designing the product, they just whip out an extremely anemic version with a visual programming tool. This prototype...".
>
>Just prior to that statement he writes: "Prototypes - by their very nature - are programs that are slapped together in a hurry so that the results can be assayed. ... Prototypes begin life as masses of scar tissue. They can never grow very large."
>
>Mr. Cooper is acclaimed as the "Father of Visual Basic" and has received the "Windows Pioneer Award" and the "Software Visionary Award".
>
>Much earlier in the book he makes the following statement:
>"Microsoft invests many millions of dollars on interface design, but its products remain universally unloved". I should qualify that here he is referring to the average end-user and not to the "guru".
>
>I'll not draw any conclusions myself.
>

I don't think Mr. Cooper is slamming VB, I think he is only saying that many developers misuse it. It is not a design tool, it is a programming tool, and software should be designed with design tools, not programming tools.