Introduction to Programming in C#

Have you heard that computer coding is the ‘cool’ skill to have, but don’t know where to start? Or have you been working with no-code solutions and feel as though it’s time to level up? In this 4-day course, you’ll be introduced to the fundamentals of computer programming. The course does not require prior programming experience and establishes the concepts needed to progress to intermediate courses on programming, such as M55339A – Programming in C#. The course is faithful to the spirit of the original M10975A course, but has been completely updated and extended to give a solid grounding in computer programming using the latest tools, and a basis for developing as a professional.

These principles can be applied to any object-oriented programming language, e.g. C++, Java, or VB, but in the course we will use the latest version of the C# language and .NET 6. Once you’ve learned to code in one language it will be fairly easy to transfer those skills to other computer languages as needed. The labs use the free Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 Community edition as a development environment, which provides an excellent environment for learning to code. But it is not intended to be a tutorial about using Visual Studio, and the principles could be applied to other development tools.

The course focuses on core programming concepts such as storage, data types, flow control, and repetition by using looping constructs. The course also introduces object-oriented programming concepts like classes, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. There are also sections on exception handling, application security, performance, and memory management. A final section aims to prepare a new developer for the software development world by covering good programming practices and coding style, and introducing different development approaches such as waterfall and agile.

This course is intended for anyone who is new to software development, or has previously used no-code solutions, and wants to gain an understanding of programming fundamentals and object-oriented programming concepts. They will typically be high school students, post-secondary school students, or career changers, with no prior programming experience.