Target Audience

This course is designed for the novice developer or those with little or no experience of C# who require an introduction to the C# language using the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE.

Pre-requisites

The student should be familiar with the host environment - either Windows NT/2000/XP or Windows 9x. Knowledge of any programming language is advantageous but not essential.

Course Objectives

This course provides students with the skills to write simple C# programs. The syntax of the language is covered in detail and also Object Oriented coding techniques are discussed. During the course the student will write many applications to ensure that the concepts and statements taught are fully understood and practical experience is gained. The course is taught using Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE. The skills needed to use this software are presented as part of the course. On completion of this course the student will be able to:

•     use the major concepts of a modern, block-structured, high-level language, such as control flow, function calls and modular programming
•     structure programs using classes and other essential object-oriented features
•     create, test and debug simple C# code using the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

Course Environment

Development will be performed using:

•     Microsoft Visual Studio

Course Details

INTRODUCTION TO C#

What is C#?

The C# Programming Language

The Common Language Runtime

Intermediate Language

What Can C# Do?

Overview of the many subjects covered by C#

Advantages of using C#

Introduction to Visual Studio

A tour of the Workbench

Solutions and Projects

Running Simple Applications

A simple first example - The "Hello World" Application

THE .NET FRAMEWORK

What is .NET?

Why use .NET?

Component features of .NET

OBJECT-ORIENTED CONCEPTS

An introduction to Objects

What is an Object?, Encapsulation, Communicating between objects

Classes & Structs

What are Classes?, Objects vs. Classes

Instantiation, the benefits of Classes, Structs, Creating and Destroying objects, Garbage Collection

Inheritance

What is Inheritance?, the benefits of Inheritance

THE C# LANGUAGE

Variables

Value Types, Reference Types, Usage Types, Naming Standards, Scope, Initialisation, Constants, Read-Only, Escape Characters

Arrays & Multi-Dimensional Arrays

Strings

Strings are objects!, Concatenation, Manipulation

Operators

Arithmetic, Unary, Relational, Conditional, Bitwise, Assignment, Expressions

Primitive Casting & Data Type Conversion

Control Flow Statements

if-else, switch, for, foreach, while, do-while, break and continue

The return Statement

Passing Arguments to C# Programs

OBJECTS, METHODS AND CLASSES

Introduction to Classes and Objects

Methods, Applications & Object Code

Creating & Manipulating Objects

Calling Methods, Passing Arguments and Method Overloading, Returning Values from Methods, Properties

Constructors, Static Constructors

Inheritance - Extending a Class

What does a Subclass Inherit?

NAMESPACES

Namespaces, The using statement

THE VISUAL STUDIO DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

The Workbench

Solution Explorer, Class View, Toolbars

Searching, Rearranging Views

Working With C#

Fixing Problems, Creating new Classes and Interfaces

References

The C# Editor

Editing code and elements, IntelliSense, Code Formatter

Running and Debugging apps

ACCESSIBILITY MODIFIERS

Public or Private?!

Declaration Parameters

Class, Variable , Method

CASTING AND DATA CONVERSION

Literal Values, Implicit & Explicit Casting, Casting With Operators

Casting Objects, Narrowing & Widening, ‘is’ and ‘as’

Data Type Conversion, Numeric Formatting

Course Format

Practical sessions make up a large part of the course, allowing delegates to demonstrate and reinforce the lectures given. During these sessions the delegate will build a simple but complete application. Examples are used extensively, ranging from simple code 'snippets' to full applications with complete ‘real world’ functionality. These are supplied at the start of the course and it is encouraged that the delegates execute and ‘experiment’ with these under the instructor’s guidance as they are introduced. These examples are available to take away, along with the delegate’s own work. The comprehensive Student Guide supplied is fully indexed serving as a useful reference tool long after the course has finished. Delegates will also be able to access a free help-line with technical questions relating to topics covered on the course.