Chapter 4: Decision Making Structures

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..

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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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..

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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

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

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.