Lecture #4 - The C# Programming Language

Synopsis:

Lecture Content:

1. The Syllabus describes topics to be covered, reading material for you to digest before coming to class, and due dates for the assigned projects.
2. Lecture and Help Videos
3. Help Session this Friday, Sept 14th at 9:00am in CST 4-201.

4. Projects:

   Time to start thinging about Project #2:

   • Project #1
     Operational Concept Document for Lexical Analyzer - Due Wednesday before Midnight
     Please zip your OCD and prototype code in ONE zip file (no rar or tar or ...) and upload.
     Note: there is a 25 MB limit for uploads so you will have to clean your projects before zipping.
   • Project #2, Project #2 Helper Code
     Lexical Analyzer Implementation
   • Visual Studio Help Slides, Package notes
   • QA Threads:
     We will be using piazza.com to host Question and Answer threads. This will work to give quick answers to fairly short questions.
     It will not work to discuss complex questions about your coding problems or debugging.
     For that you will still need to see the TAs or come to the help sessions on Fridays.

5. Introduction to C#

   Tutorials:

   • C# Tutorials - MSDN, C# Tutorials - tutorialspoint, C# Tutorials - homeandlearn. C# Tutorials - Univ Linz, C# Tutorials - zetcode
   • .Net Framework Class Library - MSDN

   Presentations:

   • Getting Started with C#
     
   • C# versus C++, pptx, C# Memory Model and Classes,
   • .Net Framework Library, pptx

   Diagrams that Illustrate Key Ideas:

   • Class relationships, vsd
     Illustrates inheritance, composition, aggregation, and using in class diagram.
   • Object relationships, vsd
     Comparison of class and object relationships.
   • Passing Parameters to Functions, vsd
     Four ways to pass variables into functions, each with its own semantics.

6. Code examples:

   Some of these examples should be directly relevant to Project #2:

   • C# Syntax Examples
     Demonstrates use of arrays, properties, indexers, simple reflection, and disposing.
   • C# Demos
     Introduces classes, class relationships, generics, enumerable types, and extension methods.
   • C# Basic Demos
     Surveys C# classes, Compound Objects, Generics, Delegates, Lambdas, Callable objects.
   • Passing value and refence types by value and ref, Parameter Passing
     These four cases all have different semantics.
   • Equivalence Examples
   • Demo Command Line and File Handling
   • .Net containers
     Use of ArrayList, List<T>, LinkedList, SortedList, HashTable, HashSet<T>, Queue<T>, Stack<T>
   • Delegate Structure, Delegates Demos, Delegate Shortcuts
     Delegates support the publish/subscribe idiom and provide major support for .Net's event model.
   • Navigate Directory Trees
     Shows how to walk through a directory tree, using the services of the Directory and Path classes from the Framework Class Library (FCL).
   • Navigate with Delegates
     Shows how to make the Navigate module reusable by incorporating delegates.

7. Components:

   Another way of structuring code:

   • Components Note, Components - Building Blocks for Large Systems,
   • Component:
     
     Interface - an abstract service contract to which the client binds
     Implemenation - the service
     Factory - standard creator the client uses to avoid binding to implementation
   • C++ Parser and C# Parser rules are pluggable because they use the component structure.

8. XML:

   eXtensible Markup Language:

   • Project #2 needs programmatic handling of XML, XML Presentation, XML processing with LINQ

9. Lecture Take-away

   The most important things we discussed today are:
   • C# Demos
   • Project #2 starter code
   Next time we will continue with more code examples. Please look at and bring printouts of:
   Passing value and refence types by value and ref, Parameter Passing
   These four cases all have different semantics.

   Demo Command Line and File Handling
   Using command line arguments to find and open files.

   Delegate Structure, Delegates Demos, Recent additions to C# - delegate shortcuts, lambdas, ...
   Delegates support the publish/subscribe idiom and provide major support for .Net's event model.