Visual Basic Programming

Background

This course is a prototype under development for the GITC. It is designed for graduating second year students seeking employment in organizations following Microsoft programming practices and standards. Currently, the GITC is using an alternative course.

Prerequisites

Students should complete courses in C++ or Java programming, database systems, networking, and operating systems.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students should be able to complete the following programming tasks using the Visual Basic Express Edition development environment:

• Write a command line application accepting and generating console input and output.
• Develop a simple graphic application, such as a calculator.
• Connect to a MySql database using the ADO object hierarchy.
• Edit records in the database using language generated graphic forms.

Schedule

The course consists of twenty-four hours of lecture and forty hours of lab time in total. The class is held on four consecutive days per week. The first three days include two hours for lecture and two hours for lab. The fourth day of four hours is devoted entirely to lab.

Course Outline

Topics

• Program structure.
• Variable declarations and types.
• Vectors and arrays.
• Expressions and statements.
• String operations.
• Flow control.
• Functions and procedures (subs).
• Exception handling (on error/goto)
• OO concepts mapped to VB.
• Controls and forms.
• Event handling.
• ADO object hierarchy and database connections.
• Queries, record sets, and tables.

Lab Exercises

• Command line programming and flow control.
• Sorting arrays.
• Four function calculator.
• Read and display contents of a sequential text file.

Lab Project

Build a Visual Basic form that inserts, selects, and updates records from an address book table. Use ADO to connect with the table stored in MySql. Retrieve a result set. Link controls to data sources in the result set. Manipulate the result set based on interface commands.

Tools

Visual Basic Express Edition

Download the ISO image for VBEE and burn a CD for trouble-free installation of the development environment. This course does NOT use the optional MSDN and Sql Server extensions.

MySql Community Edition

Visit the MySql download page to download community edition versions (GPL license) of MySql, Connector/Net, and Connector/ODBC. Optionally download the GUI Tools for ease of administration.