Introduction to Programming (Second Edition)

Course specifications

Course number: 077 701

Software version number: 6

Course length: 1 day

Hardware/software required to run this course

PC with at least a 486DX/66 MHz processor; a Pentium processor (or higher) is recommended.

Microsoft Windows 95 or later (the software will also run on Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 or later, although this course was developed using Windows 95 only).

16 MB of RAM (32 MB recommended).

Approximately 76 MB of hard disk space for Visual Basic.

Approximately 29 MB for a Custom installation of MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0.

A VGA (or higher) resolution screen supported by Microsoft Windows.

Course description

Overview: This course introduces you to general programming concepts. Although the programming concepts introduced in this course apply to most programming languages, this course uses Visual Basic 6.0 running under Microsoft Windows as the platform for learning.

Prerequisites: Windows 95: Introduction.

Delivery method: Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured hands-on activities and independent lab activities.

Benefits: Students will learn general programming concepts that provide a basis for programming in many different languages.

Target student: The target student is interested in learning general programming concepts. This course provides a foundation for students desiring to go on and learn one or more programming languages.

What’s next: Any of Element K's introductory courses on programming languages would be a good course to take after this one. For example, students wishing to learn more about Visual Basic programming could take Visual Basic 6.0: Introduction (Windows 95).

Performance-based objectives

Lesson objectives help students become comfortable with the course, and also provide a means to evaluate learning. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe features and benefits of prevalent programming languages, and describe the general phases of software development, including: planning, coding, compiling, linking, and debugging.
• Define the following terms related to object-oriented programming: objects, encapsulation, classes, instantiation, properties, methods, and events.
• Identify and describe the purpose of literals, operators, and functions.
• Use variables and constants to write programs that perform calculations.
• Explain the purpose and general functionality provided by conditional statements, relational operators, and logical operators.
• Explain the purpose and general functionality provided by Do While and For Next loops.
• Explain the benefits of dividing large programming tasks into smaller tasks.
• Identify the scope of variables within a given program.

Course content

Lesson 1: Overview of programming

• Programs and languages
• The programming process

Lesson 2: Object-oriented programming

• Overview of object-oriented technology
• Event-driven programming

Lesson 3: Calculations

• Literals, operators, and functions

Lesson 4: Storing Values

• Variables and data types

Lesson 5: Making decisions

• Branching

Lesson 6: Looping

• Exploring loops in Visual Basic

Lesson 7: Making programs modular

• Units of code
• Scope