First Program - Hello World

The students should understand all the components of a simple “Hello World” program:

• Comments (in line and block)
• using statements and namespace / API concepts
• blank lines and spacing
• indentation
• intro to classes and methods’ structures (body / header)
• status of Main method
• intro to Console’s Write and WriteLine
• string literal

Rules and Conventions

• The difference between a “rule” (e.g. case-sensitivity) and a “convention” (commenting your code).
• Reserved words
• Identifiers and naming conventions
• That the distinction can vary with the programming language
• Importance and role of { and }

Variable

• Datatype (numerical, boolean, string, character) – including a mention of reference datatypes
• Declaration, assignment, initialization
• Naming variables correctly
• The absence of default value after declaration (un-assigned variables)

Numerical Values

• Integers (int, long) – range and size, signature (uint)
• Floating Point (float, double, and decimal) – range, size and precision,
• Type casting (e.g. from int to double, and legal operations between different datatypes) and casting operator (e.g. (int)).
• Overflow and underflow 🛡

Booleans

• Possible values (true, false)
• Usage
• That boolean variables are called “switches”

Operators

• Binary arithmetic operators: *, /, %, +, -
• Unary arithmetic operators: ++, --
• The difference between postfix and infix notation for unary operators ❓
• Comparison operators: !=, ==, >, >=, <, <=
• Boolean logical operators: &&, ||, !
• Precedence and “validity” of some expressions (typically, ! 2 < 3 is not a valid expression)
• Combined assignment operators: +=, *=, -=, /=, %=

Strings

• ReadLine method
• Concatenation (+)
• Interpolation
• Additional methods: ToLower, ToUpper, Contains, StartsWith, EndsWith ❓

Characters

• Possible values and the existence of binary, oct, dec and hex representation (cf. for instance wikipedia)
• Escape character and sequences: \n, \t, \\
• Conversion between glyph and decimal value.
• Various methods: ToLower, ToUpper ❓

Selection Statements

For each of the following structure:

• if
• if-else
• if-else if
• nested ifs
• switch

The student should understand

• Their importance,
• Their usage,
• Their syntax,
• Their flow,
• When to use one or the other,
• The common pitfalls (e.g., writing a condition in a switch).

Repetition Statements

For each of the following structure:

• foreach
• while
• for
• do{…}while(…) ❓

The student should understand:

• Their importance,
• Their usage,
• Their syntax,
• Their flow,
• When to use one or the other,
• The common pitfalls (e.g. = instead of ==, <= n vs < n)

As well as being capable of identifying the difference between

• Counter-controlled,
• Sentinel-controlled,
• User-controlled

and defining the term “accumulator”

Class Conception

• Need and interest of specification 🛡
• UML Class diagram: interest, usage, and simple case (single class with attributes, methods and constructor).
• Access modifier (private, public)
• Principle of least privilege (private variables and methods where possible) 🛡

Class Implementation

• Attributes (and their default value, as well as how to change them)
• Get and Set methods
• Properties ❓
• Method signature
• Overloading
• Variable shadowing ❓
• Constructors: default constructor and “custom” constructor

Class Usage

• The new keyword
• Object creation using default and custom constructors
• Object manipulation: calling a method, setting an attribute, calling the ToString method implicitly.

Additional Considerations

• ToString method
• static class and methods
• Math Class (Abs, Sqrt, Pow) ❓

Constant

• The const keyword
• Example usages (Avogadro constant, miles-to-kilometer ratio, speed of light) and use case.
• Math.PI ❓
• Static constant ❓

Enumerated Datatype ❓

• Define enumerated datatypes using enum
• Enum values (i.e. numerical values assigned to enumerated values by default) ❓
• Use enumerated datatypes (variable declaration, assignment, displaying).

Arrays

Only one-dimensional arrays should be discussed.

• Vocabulary: index (starting at 0), bounds.
• Length property
• Resize method ❓
• Different syntaxes for initializing and declaring arrays ❓
• Buffer overflow 🛡