Visual Basic Programming I

Welcome to the CISP 241 Course Weblog

2010-11-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the CISP 241: Visual Basic Programming I Course Weblog! This site will serve as a repository for course information, including course slides, assignments and resources.

Please send me an email (nicole.ryan@davenport.edu) if you have any suggestions regarding the weblog.

Adding Menus, SubMenus and Control Toolboxes to your forms

2010-11-18T14:07:00.000-08:00

This week we will continue on with Chapter 7 and add on to our projects from last week. Specifically we will add Menus and Sub Menus, and Control Toolboxes to our forms.

This assignment will be due after we return from Thanksgiving Break, Thursday, December 2, 2010.

Chapter 7: Working with Multiple Forms

2010-11-11T13:56:00.000-08:00

This week we will take a look at forms in Chapter 7. Next week we will look at modules and menus.

Here's your chance to get creative. I would like you to look through the material related to forms in this chapter, review your notes, and design your own program with at least two forms.

Draw out your program interface and the functions or methods that will be required to carry out your desired functionality. You have creative liberty regarding what your form does and how it looks.

Customize your forms to your liking and submit your project via Blackboard by Thursday, November 18, 2010.

Beef up our Blog! (BUOB)

2010-11-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today we will discuss the revamp of our course syllabus, and we will take a day off from the usual seriousness of Visual Basic.

Today we will dedicate our efforts to finding useful VB resources and games to add to our blog.

Also on the agenda tonight is to get out early and generally enjoy life.

-Nicole

Chapter 6: Functions, Oh My!

2010-10-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight we will discuss functions in Visual Basic as they are outlined in Chapter 6 of our text.

The assignment in conjunction with this chapter is to complete programming exercise 4, outlined as Joe's Automotive, in Chapter 6 of our text.

Pay particular attention to the functions that are required and the note regarding apostrophe's in the name of the form.

Joe's Automotive form (Exercise #4, Chapter 6) is due in class next Thursday, November 4, 2010.

Chapter 5: Lists and Loops && The Midterm Exam

2010-10-07T13:25:00.003-07:00

This week we will discuss lists and loops in Visual Basic as they are outlined in Chapter 5 of our text.

...And we will look at the tutorials together as requested last week in class. There will be no assignment to hand in for this chapter due to the Midterm Exam.

Part One of our Midterm Exam will take place in class next week, Thursday, October 14th. This portion of the exam will be "hands on" and require you to complete Programming Challenge 1 from Chapter 5, labeled "Sum of Numbers".

Part 2 of our Midterm Exam will take place in two weeks on Thursday, October 21st. A study guide will be given out in class next week. This portion of the exam will consist of approximately 20 questions drawn from concepts covered in chapters 1 - 5.

T-Shirt-Of-The-Day

2010-09-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not ignoring you...

..your comment is awaiting moderation.

Chapter 4: Decision Making Structures

2010-09-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight we will take a look at Chapter 4 and with that how to approach decision making in our programs. Specifically we will look at relational operators, logical operators, and common decision structures.

We will examine several examples in the text and then try our hand with an assignment.

The assignment this week is either Exercise 4 - Running the Race on page 279 in my text : ) OR page 268 in your text (Thank you Brenda!).

OR if you are looking for more of a challenge, you are welcome to try Excerise 11 - Internet Service Provider, Part 1 on page 282 in my text or 272 in your text. ~~(And the page in your text is? Anyone? Bueller?)~~

You may choose either exercise for this week's assignment, though one is more involved that the other..

Whichever program you choose to focus your efforts on, this assignment is due next Thursday, October 7, 2010. Please upload your programs to Blackboard.

Chapter 3: Variables and Calculations Continued..

2010-09-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

As promised, tonight we will continue exploring the material in Chapter 3, beginning with section 3.4 - Mixing Different Data Types. I would like you to read the remainder of Chapter 3, starting from section 3.4 (Mixing Different Data Types) and continuing through 3.11 (3.11 is titled "More about Debugging: Locating Logic Errors").

Below I will briefly outline each of the sections we need to digest this week from Chapter 3 and recommend tutorials to review that should help increase your understanding of the material...

Section 3.4 (Mixing Different Data Types) discusses type conversion runtime errors which can take place when assigning values to variables using literals (see section 3.4 for a list of literal data types).

It is also possible to explicitly convert one type to another. This is explained in detail within section 3.4 under the heading "Explicit Type Conversions". Table 3-12 shows some of the commonly used type conversion functions, and the following pages discuss converting textbox input and invalid conversions.

Please review these pages and look at Tutorial 3-7: Examining a Simple Calculator application.

Section 3.5 (Formatting Numbers and Dates) outlines the toString method and its options for displaying numerical formats as plain numbers, fixed point and exponential scientific numbers, and also currency or percentage formats.

Please review these pages and look at Tutorial 3-8: Examining the Format Demo application.

Section 3.6 (Class Level Variables) details how class level variables may be used and discusses their scope in the program during runtime.

Section 3.7 (Exception Handling) demonstrates how programmers can build programs designed to handle exceptions and gracefully recover from anticipated errors.

Please review these pages and look at Tutorial 3-9: Exception Demonstration and Tutorial 3-10: Salary Calculator project with exception Handling.

Section 3.8 (Group Boxes) explains how a group box can be used to group related controls together.

Section 3.9 (Load Event) discusses how the event handler for the Load Event of an application can be used to execute other code. This would operate the same way as the event handlers that we have worked with for button clicks.

Section 3.10 (Focus on Program Design and Problem Solving) demonstrates a program design from start to finish using the Room Charge Calculator application

Please review these pages and look at Tutorial 3-11: Beginning the Room Charge Calculator application. If you are interested exploring how to change colors with code, you can also check out Tutorial 3-12: Changing a label's colors..

Section 3.11 (more about Debugging: Locating Logic Errors) details how to pause programs and execute statements one at a time to examine variable contents and property values.

Please review these pages and look at Tutorial 3-13: Single-stepping through an application's at runtime.

You do not have to turn in any of the tutorials, but it is in your best interest to test them and try to become more familiar with these basic principles and practices before we move on to more complex programs and concepts in the upcoming weeks.

Please call or email with questions! - Nicole

Chapter 3: Variables and Calculations

2010-09-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

This week we will look at variables and calculations in Chapter 3.

For this week's assignment I would like you to choose 2 of the programming projects list in the Design Your Own Forms section of the chapter on pages 188 - 191.

Both programs are due next Thursday, September 30, 2010.

Creating Applications with Visual Basic

2010-09-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

Tonight we will discuss and test Creating Applications with Visual Basic as it is covered in Chapter 2 of your textbook.

Since we have a group which seems to share an excellent sense of humor, tonight's assignment will be exercise 7, Joke and Punch Line on page 107 of the text. If you would like to challenge yourself, add more than one joke and punch line..

Bonus points (5) given for creativity! With that said, please, keep the jokes appropriate for class : )

When you have completed the assignment please upload it via the assignment link in Blackboard. You should submit all of your files for the project as a zipped file.