Intro

Visual Basic or VB is one of Microsoft’s most important languages. When it is used to manipulate Microsoft Office its called VBA (visual basic for applications)

• Objects are often evident.
• VB.net is very popular.
• Case insensitive, Space & line break insensitive (but the IDE will correct for you)

Getting Started

• vb online click here
• On the JIS network
• At home, Visual Studio is a very large download… (more info to come)
• Other Online editors, IdeaOne

Hello World

Your code must go immediately after the “Sub Main()” line

    Console.WriteLine("Hello World!")
    Console.ReadLine()   'This is to keep the screen open so you can see the result

Then Run your code
Great! you have written your first vb command

Question: What does the ‘ character do in vb? – Hint check the code above

User Input

    Dim name As String
    Console.Write("What is your name? ")
    name = Console.ReadLine()
    Console.WriteLine("Hello, " & name)
    Console.ReadLine()

Theory

Name is a variable, it could be hold the words “Peter”, “Joanne” or “Paul”. A variable is stored in the memory of a computer

Questions

What’s the difference between name and “name”

Which keyword is needed for the user to tell the computer something?

Which character is used to stick two strings together in VB?

Research why does VB use DIM?

Conditional Love

or Insult If

    If name = "me" Then
        Console.WriteLine(name & ",you are awesome")
    End If
    Console.ReadLine()

Theory

Hey you have

• used an if statement (a conditional)
• used the comparison operator = (you can also use number with <, > )

See Also Dot Netperls

Which of the major programming principles uses IF ?

Else

    If name = "me" Then
        Console.WriteLine(name & ",you are awesome")
    Else
        Console.WriteLine(name & ", you suck")
    End If

Key Words

• you have joined a message string "you suck" with a string name this is called to concatenate
• the concatenation operator in vb is &

Elseif

Allows you to make more complex choices

    If name = "me" Then
        Console.WriteLine(name & ", you are awesome")
    ElseIf name = "pete" Then
        Console.WriteLine(name & ", you are a real good buddy")
    ElseIf name = "sarah" Then
        Console.WriteLine(name & ", you are a real nice person")
    Else
        Console.WriteLine(name & ", you suck")
    End If

See Also: [https://www.dotnetperls.com/select-vbnet](Select Case)

AND Teenager

Task

Your task is to tell people if they are teenagers. Use the following code to help you.

    Dim age As Integer
    Console.Write("How old are you? ")
    age = Console.ReadLine()
    If age > 40 And age < 80 Then
        Console.WriteLine("You are middle aged")
    End If

Theory: Boolean Logic

You will need to use the Boolean operator AND (always in Sentence case in vb). Other operators are OR, AND NOT

• Note that vb needs you to input a number not string

OR Friends

Using Or is similar to using Else If

Task

Send a different insult to you friends

If Name = "John" Or Name = "Paul" Or Name = "Ringo" Then
    Console.Writeline("hey you could be a Beetle ")
End If

Theory

see also Select Case
You have used

• the Boolean operator OR

AI Chat Bot

Read about this AI (Artificial Intelligence) Receptionist.
Build your own AI Chatbot. You can search the web to find online examples to give you ideas.

The Turing Test

If a human being cannot tell the difference between a computer and a real person it has passed the Turing Test.
More information

Submit your vb Code here:

Loop the loop

Computers are very good at repeating things

console.writeline("hey I can count")
For x = 1 to 10
    console.writeline(x)
Next 

Tasks

1. Count up to Ten Thousand
2. Write the 2 times table up to 24
3. Reverse the 2 times table (24 to 2)
4. Do any times table (ask the user)
5. Write x squared up to 12 * 12
6. Write x cubed up to 12 * 12 * 12
7. Write the powers of 2 up to 2 ^ 10
8. Write 1/x (1 over x) up to x = 10

Extreme Tasks
1. Write fibonacci Series upto 100
2. Write the Series of prime numbers upto 100
3. Write the Square root of x without using the maths library (difficult)

'count in colour
Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green

'slow counting
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5)

While

While loops keep going until a condition is met. They can go on forever (but the one below doesn’t)

Dim i As Integer = 0
While i < 100
    Console.WriteLine(i)
    i = i + 1
End While

• create i and give it a value
• while starts the loop
• print i
• make i bigger (increment x)

Bottom Check

In this version of the While loop, the conditional statement is at the bottom

Dim i As Integer = 0
Do  
    Console.WriteLine(i)
    i = i + 1
Loop While i < 100

Compare the Top & Bottom Check loops. Is possible that the statements in the loop never get executed? How many times must they be executed.

Random Numbers

Random numbers change each time you write them because of the .next. So create a second variable if you want to use it again

Dim r1 As Random = New Random
Dim r2 as integer
r2 = r1.Next(1, 13)

Example

Subs

Subs make code easier to read and understand. They also help us reuse code.

Sub mySquare():
    'Code to draw a square goes here
End Sub

'Call the Sub later by using
mySquare()

Some Subs also need an argument to be added. This ‘blue’ sub needs a string to be passed so it knows what to print.

Sub blue(mystring)
    Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Blue
    Console.WriteLine(mystring)
    Console.ResetColor()
End Sub
'In your Sub Main()
blue("You fell in the Water")

Functions look like subs but they actually return a value (they have a return keyword in them at the end)

See

Submit Warning Sub

Question:

Without scrolling up to read the definitions, write down what a sub is an what are the advantages of using them.

Adventure Game Plan

TASK: Produce a plan on paper/powerpoint for your own adventure game

• Use N, S, E, W directions
• tell the user if you have Y / N questions

Text Based Adventure

Online Code

Submit Your Adventure Game Code: