Teach C#

Published on October 27, 2021

6min to read

What I learned teaching a small class of 20 students how to Design & Build a C# App. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink' is a proverb which means that you can give someone an opportunity but not force them to take it. Learning while teaching. Lessons are here GitHub Software Design Fundamentals

The following is a lesson plan that I created and taught.

Developing Software is fun?

Lets find out by learning to design & build a Windows App in C#. Don’t feel intimidated and take a little at a time.

Tips on learning C#

As you watch the demos in class, try to follow what has been done and have a go at re-creating the project and the code. After the demo look back over this lesson plan or talk to class mates or do some research in regards to any questions you might have. Don’t just mindlessly copy source code from a website or from this lesson plan. If something is not completely clear, take the time to use me or better still google.

Be patient or iot, I began to teach myself programming back in September 2010. I didn’t get my first real job using C# until June 2013. It took a lot of nights and weekends to learn it well enough to get a job. How long will it take you to learn? That depends on your level of commitment and your background in software development.
However, after going through these lessons and demos, talking to class mates, as well as YouTube videos on.

Find a project to do for a friend, a charity, a small local business. If you have a project in mind as you begin to learn, it will --force you to learn things you otherwise might overlook. Once you are finished, you will inevitably feel ambivalent: you’ll be so proud of what you’ve accomplished, and at the same time you will look back and realize how utterly pathetic that first attempt at programming was.

How long will it take me to learn C#?

How long it would take me to learn French ?: • 1 day to learn what it is • 1 week to learn it to an infant/elementary level • 1 year to be considered a beginner by professionals • Several years to be considered an experienced professional • Plus there's "deep" knowledge of those subjects which a mere mortal such as you or I will never learn

Then again, plenty of people (most normal people, non-programmers) never learn those subjects, so if you're like "most" people then the answer would be "it would take forever" or "it will never happen".

Software Design & Build Fundamentals

  • Visual Studio Interface
  • Design Best Practices
  • Variables and Datatypes
  • Iteration and Selection Statements

The Set-up

  1. Download and install Visual Studio Community 2013
  2. Create GitHub account and create a new repository called Csharp-Basics
  3. Download and install the latest version of GitHub for windows version 7, 8, 8.1
  4. On your PC in users\username\documents create new vsprojects folder
  5. Open PowerShell type following text 
cd git clone https://github.com/Stevo5o/Software-Design-Fundamentals
cd to clone folder

Lesson 1

HelloWorld windows application. Open Visual Studio select new project. Select Visual C# and Windows form application. In the Windows dialog change name and location to:
• Name: HelloWorld • Location: click Browse button navigate to vsprojects\Csharp-Basics folder – GitHub clone • Create new folder Lesson1 • Click OK button

Run debug click start button, this is a basic windows form click x and close. This is a complete windows app, however it does not do anything. Go to C:\Users\username\Documents\VSProjects\ Csharp- Basics\Lesson1\HelloWorld\bin\Debug and click HelloWorld.exe

Create a button that once clicked displays a message box that displays Hello World. Go to toolbox select button. Double click button and into Form1.cs type MessageBox.Show("Hello World"); Two tabs code design view and debug app using the start button.

Solution explorer file description. Shut down reopen visual studio. Looking at Debugging. Set break points to step through each line of code.

What are Events? “Event Driven Programs” Response to events like open file, exit, new file, print file. Hundreds of events that an app can react to. Double click on the OK button an event handler is created and given a default name. When the event is triggered the end user clicks the button. Event handler event default name button1_Click Curly braces ... { } ... define a bock of code. Events are triggered in an app. App can respond or ignore those events. Write code in Event Handlers to handle events. Code must be written inside of code block defined by curly braces. Methods are the basic building blocks of writing code. An event Handler is a more specific type of a method. 

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) // event handler 
{ 
    MessageBox.Show("Hello World"); // event 
}

Lesson 2

Design Best Practices Arrange controls in columns and rows. Labels left input boxes, data entered on the right. Ok Cancel buttons on the right. Use standard fonts and colors. Keep it simple. Use standard, succinct descriptions (names) for controls. Don’t make the user “think”, easy for the user to use.

Buttons: Allow user to communicate a decision or to trigger some action.

Labels: Non-interactive descriptions or text usually displayed on the left-hand side of other controls.

Text Boxes: Allow for unstructured user input.

Check Boxes: Allow for yes /no or on /off type user input. Used together to allow off “Check all that apply”

Combo box: Text and list box combination. User can select item in the list, or type in a selection that is not in the list.

Menu strip: Add menu to app, select Insert Standard Items.

Tool strip: Add toolbar to app. Includes progress bars, textboxes, combo boxes & more

Status strip: Add status bar to app to provide feedback to the user

Tool Strip Container: Hosts other controls like the menu strip, Toll Strip and the Status Strip to provide user app customization. Arrange toolbars top left bottom right

Tips: Make sure the right control is selected before making any changes in the Properties window. Set tab order. Click VIEW and Tab Order click item to make first. Tab Order starts with the control from the left-hand corner logically to the lower right-hand corner.

Lesson 3

Variables and Datatypes 

y = x + 6

What does y equal?

Variables represents a space in a computer’s memory that is assigned to store a value. The name of the variable is then used in code to reference the value that is stored in that memory space. Declaring a variable is the act of allocationg space in he computer’s memory for valus of a specific data type and giving the variable name. There are many available data types in C#, including ones that can store strings, dates, numbers, and more..

Three Basic Numeric data Types..

• Interger (int): -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647 • Double (double): ±5.0 × 10−324 to ±1.7 × 10308 up to 15 decimal places • Boolean (bool): true or false

When writing C#, C# is case sensitive. Consider a variable a bucket and the string literal can go into the bucket. 

string hello; // hello is the bucket 
hello = "hello world"; // string literal goes into the hello bucket 
MessageBox.Show(hello); // hello var 
MessageBox.Show("hello"); // string literal  

 
// declare two vars 
string firstTextBox = textBox1.Text; 
string secondTextBox = textBox2.Text; 
 
label1.Text = firstTextBox + " " + secondTextBox; 

Declare a Variable with the wrong a data type error with discription. 

VS implictyly converts interger to double no loss of data 
int myValue = 3; // data type integer 
double myOtherValue; // data type double 
myOtherValue = myValue; // VS converts from int to double