CS101: Ch10: Software Programming & Languages

This lab is intended to simply define the Programming Process and asks you to start up and run some examples using Microsoft Visual Basic 6. Note: CS 106 is a semester long course to teach people to program in VB6, so what we are doing today should be considered just a taste. We will download some on-line notes and examples giving a the details on VB6 for those who choose to pursue this ... sometime in the future.

Programming as a five-step problem-solving process

Problem Clarification
What does the client want?
Program Design
Structured programming uses a top-down approach to break the task into modular form
Program Coding
Once design is developed, reviewed and clearly specified in each team programmer's mind, then you start to write code.
Program Testing
Alpha Testing (withint the team and colleagues), Beta Testing (using both "good data" and "bad data" to verify your program does what you expected, even if the user gave the wrong beginning information)
Program Documentation and Maintenance
Written documents with flowcharts or other diagrams as appropriate to the project must be developed.

Programming is Phase 4.1 within the SDLC (System Development Life Cycle)

  1. Preliminary Investigation
  2. Systems Analysis
  3. Systems Design
  4. Systems Development
  5. Systems Implementation
  6. Systems Maintenance
which was covered in detail in Chapter 9, which we did not cover this semester.

Have you heard of the term

Pair Programming?

All I Really Need to Know about Pair Programming I Learned in Kindergarten (Laurie Williams U Utah; Robert Kessler U Utah)
pairprogramming.com
Do a Google Search for "Pair Programming" Today, in lab, I would like to introduce you to the Visual Basic IDE (Integrated Development Environment) so that you can see what such an environment provides. Please work as Pairs.

Access Learn Visual Basic 6
This site was discussed in Irwin McGraw-Hill UIT online Project 11. You may wish to examine our publisher site for more background. Or you can download some examples from KIDware.
Download the Free Trial Version of KIDware
You will likely see the PopUp Window giving the choice More Info Pick App... Save File... Cancel, you will want to select Save File... and place the "zip" file in a directory (remember its name)
Find the directory you downloaded double click on the zip file and it will be extracted.
You will now have a selection of sample VB6 files you can run today

Running the VB examples within its IDE
From PC Start Menu - Select Visual Basic (please follow me on the screen)
Once VB6 has started up, examine the tool bar at the top of the screen (note Help)
When you finish examine the Tool bar in general, select File
Open Project
Now you should navigate to the directory you placed the sample codes in from KIDware
LearnVB6 then VB Code then Select an Example - I had fun with Example 4-1 on Temperature Conversation (Select Run / Start to see it)
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