Bishop Guertin High School 2003-2003

Instructor Mr. Alfred Thompson

Visual Basic .Net Syllabus

Introduction to Programming with Visual Basic .Net is a hands-on course in which you have the opportunity to Enhance your problem solving skills, Become acquainted with and master computer programming with Visual Basic .Net, and Have fun.

Class materials:
Text: During the current school year, instructors notes and the extensive on-line help built into Visual Studio .Net will substitute for a formal textbook. Class work: Our class work will consist of lectures and exercises aimed at learning programming syntax and system usage. Exercises will be completed individually by each student and will be graded on a regular basis. These exercises will be submitted in hard copy or as electronic media, as directed by the instructor. Class participation will contribute to the class work grade. Tests: Written tests will be given for many of the topics we cover. Programs: Each student will design and write programs in Visual Basic .Net to demonstrate their knowledge of the language and their ability to use it to solve real world problems. Programs will be completed individually by each student and will be handed in as electronic media or as printouts, as directed by the instructor. Programs must be internally documented with comments. Software: All lab systems have Windows 2000 and Visual Studio .Net installed. Students with adequate hardware at home may check out the Visual Studio .Net software for installation at home. If a student is not running Windows 2000 or Windows XP on their home computer they may also borrow a copy of Windows XP for home use. This software is available only for students enrolled in a programming course and is not to be shared with others. Quarter Grades: The quarter grade will be calculated by averaging the class work grades, the test grades and the program grades. Exams: Instead of a final exam, a project which will be assigned 2 weeks prior to the last day of class and will be due on the last day of class. The project grade will count as 20% of the semester grade.

Course Outline
Course introduction Course materials and instructor expectations will be discussed. History of computers and programming The Visual Basic .Net languages and .Net Foundation classes will be placed in historical context with the development of higher level programming languages. Introduction to the IDE A discussion of the Visual Studio .Net IDE with an emphasis on project creation and management. Debugging tools will be discussed along with the built in help facility. Introduction to Object Oriented Design A explanation of software objects and their use in problem solving and program design. Classes and Data types - The intrinsic data types used by Visual Basic .Net will be introduced. Important classes that are included with the .Net Foundation and used by Visual Basic .Net will also be covered. Strings and String Manipulation The string class will be used to manipulate textual data. Both .Net Foundation class methods and traditional BASIC string manipulation methods will be presented. Decision making - logical expressions & if statements An introduction to Boolean algebra will prepare students for understanding and use of the decision making statements supported by Visual Basic .Net. Complex and compound if Statements and the Select/Case structure Students will build more complex decision structures using a variety of syntax. Loops Students will be introduced to For loops and While loops A discussion of determinate and indeterminate loops will include several syntactical tools for programming repletion in Visual Basic .Net. Arrays and array methods Arrays will be discussed in coordination with loops for processing large amounts of similar data. Methods that are part of the Array and ArrayList classes in .Net will be used to simplify many array activities. The foreach looping method will also be covered. Error Handling Exception handling will be learned and used. The Try/Catch/Finally structure will be covered in some detail. Students will learn how to use (throw and catch) standard .Net system exceptions. Inheritance and interfaces Students will learn how to inherit classes to create their own classes. Students will also learn how to design base classes for flexibility of design and code reuse. The IComparable interface will be used as an example of the power of standard interfaces and their relationship to reusable code. File Input and Output Simple file i/o and sequential text files. Recursion What is recursion and how and when to use it. Algorithms Sorting Using the Array.Sort method and creating programmer written sorts.

Algorithms Searching Understand sequential and random access searches using both student programmer written code and the Array BinarySearch method. Introduction to ASP .Net [Optional] If time permits, students will learn basic Web form objects and their use to create Active Server Pages. Semester projects Students will develop programs that implement a complete solution to a significant task. These projects will demonstrate knowledge of material from the entire course.