CSC300 Visual Programming

1
CSC300Visual Programming

• Dr. Craig Reinhart

2
Objectives

• Teach the basics of C
• You wont be an expert but hopefully a very good
  novice
• GUI development
• Lots of aspects to this (similar to Swing in Java)

3
Introduction to Visual C

• Chapter 1

4
The .NET Framework

• The .NET framework is part of the Windows
  operating system
• Consists of
• Common Language Runtime environment
• .NET Framework libraries
• Programming language agnostic
• C, C, Visual Basic
• We will be using C

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C in Visual Studio 2005

• Two modes
• Native programs run directly on the CPU
• Microsoft Foundation Classes (object oriented)
• Windows API (more like C than C)
• Applications are unmanaged (programmer
  responsible for dynamic memory deallocation)
• CLR programs run in a virtual environment (like
  Java)
• Windows Forms from the .NET framework
• Applications are managed (garbage collector)
• We will look at all but, realistically it wont
  make a world of difference so our concentration
  will be on MFC (object oriented)

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Common Language Runtime

• Implements a standard known as C/CLI
• C Common Language Infrastructure
• This is similar to the Java virtual machine
• standard means
• Programs can easily implemented making C
  programs portable across architectures and
  operating systems
• Programs of different languages (C, C, VB) can
  be easily combined into a single application
• Applications can exercise a high degree of
  security
• Microsoft C, C, and VB programs compile into
  MicroSoft Intermediate Language (MSIL)
• Similar to Java byte code

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Lay of the Land
Managed C
.NET framework
Native C
Native C
MFC
CLR
Operating System
Hardware
8
Windows (visual) programming

• Programs are typically (should be!) divided into
  two parts
• The Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• You will get lots of help from the Visual Studio
  2005 development environment with this part
• The business logic
• Youll have to write this part yourself
• Why should we divide a program like this?
• Because doing so allows us to change the GUI
  without changing the business logic (portability)

9
C

• Looks syntactically similar to Java
• This can be either good or bad
• ISO/IEC 14882 standard defines C
• If you adhere to the standard your code will
  compile on any compiler
• In general, your business logic should adhere to
  the standard
• There is no generally accepted GUI standard
• There are some cross platform APIs (OPENGL, JUCE,
  FTK, others)
• C/CLI extends the ISO standard to include
  support for the .NET framework
• MFC is an add-on library and therefore not
  standard

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Two user interface modes of C

• Console applications
• These are simple command line UI applications
• Concentration is on the business logic
• Smaller, faster, easy to write
• Good for developing algorithms
• Typically single threaded, deterministic,
  synchronous execution
• GUI applications
• More or less the opposite of the above

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Visual Studio 2005

• Integrated Development Environment
• Similar (in function) to Eclipse or NetBeans for
  Java
• Unlike Java (Swing, AWT) its virtually
  impossible to develop a C GUI based application
  without an IDE
• Editor, compiler, linker, librarian, debugger,
  source code repository, and more
• I can supply you with a copy of Visual Studio 2005

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Visual Studio 2005 notes

• Object (.OBJ) files have nothing to do with
  object oriented programming
• Visual Studio 2005 is not backwards compatible
  with previous versions of Visual Studio (2003,
  2002, .NET, )
• When you create your projects pay very close
  attention to what you are doing
• If you make a mistake you will have to start over
  its virtually impossible for a beginner to
  change some things

13
Lets try it

• Console applications (pages 13 27)
• Native mode, pre-defined version
• Native mode, programmer-defined version (empty
  project)
• CLR mode, pre-defined version
• GUI applications (pages 28 36)
• Native mode, MFC
• Managed mode, CLR

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Homework assignment

• Install Visual Studio 2005 on your personal
  computer
• Recreate all projects from pages 13 36 on your
  computer
• Turn in a short write-up describing the
  experiences including
• Failures
• Successes
• Unresolved issues
• Resolved issues
• Due beginning of next class meeting