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C# Programming
Yellow Book
Rob Miles
“Cheese” Edition 8.1 December 2019
This page intentionally left blank.
Apart from this text.
And this…….
And this just for version 8.1

i
Introduction 1
Welcome ............................................................................................................................. 1
Reading the notes ................................................................................................................ 1
Getting a copy of the notes and code samples .................................................................... 1

1 Computers and Programs 2

1.1 Computers ............................................................................................................ 2
1.2 Programs and Programming ................................................................................. 4
1.3 Programming Languages ...................................................................................... 9
1.4 C# ....................................................................................................................... 10

2 Simple Data Processing 14

2.1 A First C# Program ............................................................................................ 14
2.2 Manipulating Data .............................................................................................. 22
2.3 Writing a Program .............................................................................................. 33

3 Creating Programs 48
3.1 Methods .............................................................................................................. 48
3.2 Variables and Scope ........................................................................................... 58
3.3 Arrays ................................................................................................................. 61
3.4 Exceptions and Errors......................................................................................... 66
3.5 The Switch Construction .................................................................................... 70
3.6 Using Files .......................................................................................................... 73

4 Creating Solutions 79
4.1 Our Case Study: Friendly Bank .......................................................................... 79
4.2 Enumerated Types .............................................................................................. 79
4.3 Structures ............................................................................................................ 82
4.4 Objects, Structures and References .................................................................... 86
4.5 Designing With Objects ..................................................................................... 93
4.6 Static Items ......................................................................................................... 99
4.7 The Construction of Objects ............................................................................. 102
4.8 From Object to Component .............................................................................. 109
4.9 Inheritance ........................................................................................................ 116
4.10 Object Etiquette ................................................................................................ 126
4.11 The power of strings and chars ......................................................................... 131
4.12 Properties .......................................................................................................... 133
4.13 Building a Bank ................................................................................................ 140

5 Advanced Programming 144

5.1 Generics and Collections .................................................................................. 144
5.2 Storing Business Objects .................................................................................. 149
5.3 Business Objects and Editing ........................................................................... 160
5.4 Threads and Threading ..................................................................................... 167
5.5 Structured Error Handling ................................................................................ 176
5.6 Program Organisation ....................................................................................... 178
5.7 A Graphical User Interface ............................................................................... 184
5.8 Debugging ........................................................................................................ 195
5.9 The End? .......................................................................................................... 198

6 Glossary of Terms 199

Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 199
Accessor.......................................................................................................................... 199
Base ................................................................................................................................ 199

i
 Call ................................................................................................................................. 199
Class ............................................................................................................................... 199
Code Reuse ..................................................................................................................... 200
Cohesion ......................................................................................................................... 200
Collection........................................................................................................................ 200
Compiler ......................................................................................................................... 200
Component...................................................................................................................... 200
Constructor ..................................................................................................................... 200
Coupling ......................................................................................................................... 201
Creative Laziness ............................................................................................................ 201
Declarative language ...................................................................................................... 201
Delegate .......................................................................................................................... 201
Dependency .................................................................................................................... 202
Event ............................................................................................................................... 202
Exception ........................................................................................................................ 202
Functional Design Specification ..................................................................................... 203
Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) ................................................................................ 203
Hierarchy ........................................................................................................................ 203
Immutable ....................................................................................................................... 203
Inheritance ...................................................................................................................... 203
Interface .......................................................................................................................... 203
Library ............................................................................................................................ 203
Machine code .................................................................................................................. 204
Member ........................................................................................................................... 204
Metadata ......................................................................................................................... 204
Method ............................................................................................................................ 204
Mutator ........................................................................................................................... 204
Namespace ...................................................................................................................... 204
Overload ......................................................................................................................... 204
Override .......................................................................................................................... 205
Portable ........................................................................................................................... 205
Private ............................................................................................................................. 205
Property .......................................................................................................................... 205
Protected ......................................................................................................................... 205
Public .............................................................................................................................. 205
Reference ........................................................................................................................ 205
Signature ......................................................................................................................... 206
Source file ....................................................................................................................... 206
Static ............................................................................................................................... 206
Stream ............................................................................................................................. 206
Structure.......................................................................................................................... 206
Subscript ......................................................................................................................... 206
Syntax Highlighting ........................................................................................................ 207
Test harness .................................................................................................................... 207
This ................................................................................................................................. 207
Typesafe.......................................................................................................................... 207
Unit test........................................................................................................................... 207
Value type ....................................................................................................................... 208

© Rob Miles 2019

All rights reserved. No large-scale reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without
written permission. Individual copies can be printed for personal use. The author can be contacted at:
Email: rob@robmiles.com Blog: www.robmiles.com Twitter @RobMiles

If you find a mistake in the text, please report the error to foundamistake@robmiles.com and I will take a look.
Thanks to Liz, Dina, Lilli, Neil, Richard, William, Don, Bram, Mitch, Jaswinder, Javi, Peter, Justin, James, Mike,
Ian, Papartis, Hassan, Drew and Johan who have all done just that and made the book even better.

Edition 8.1b
Tuesday, 17 December 2019

ii
The cheese was delicious.

iii
Introduction Welcome

Introduction
Welcome
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Rob Miles™. This is a world of bad jokes, puns,
and programming. In this book I'm going to give you a smattering of the C#
programming language. If you have programmed before I'd be grateful if you'd still
read the text. It is worth it just for the jokes and you may actually learn something.
If you have not programmed before, do not worry. Programming is not rocket science
it is, well, programming. The bad news about learning to program is that you get hit
with a lot of ideas and concepts at around the same time when you start, and this can be
confusing. The keys to learning programming are:
Practice – do a lot of programming and force yourself to think about things from a
problem solving point of view
Study – look at programs written by other people. You can learn a lot from studying
code which other folk have created. Figuring out how somebody else did the job is a
great starting point for your solution. And remember that in many cases there is no best
solution, just ones which are better in a particular context, i.e. the fastest, the smallest,
the easiest to use etc.
Persistence – writing programs is hard work. And you have to work hard at it. The
principle reason why most folks don't make it as programmers is that they give up. Not
because they are stupid. However, don't get too persistent. If you haven't solved a
programming problem in 30 minutes you should call time out and seek help. Or at least
walk away from the problem and come back to it. Staying up all night trying to sort out
a problem is not a good plan. It just makes you all irritable in the morning. We will
cover what to do when it all goes wrong later in section 5.9.

Reading the notes

These notes are written to be read straight through, and then referred to afterwards.
They contain a number of Programming Points. These are based on real programming
experience and are to be taken seriously. There are also bits written in a Posh Font.
These are really important, should be learnt by heart and probably set to music.
If you have any comments on how the notes can be made even better (although I of
course consider this highly unlikely) then feel free to get in touch.
Above all, enjoy programming.
Rob Miles

Getting a copy of the notes and code samples

Printed copies of these notes are made freely available to Computer Science students at
the University of Hull. The website for the book is at http://www.csharpcourse.com
where you can also find the PowerPoint slide decks and laboratory exercises for a C#
course based on this text. You can also find the C# code samples here too.
If you want to make a single printed copy of the text for private use, that's fine by me,
but if you intend to print larger numbers I'd appreciate you getting in touch first.
You can obtain a Kindle eBook version from Amazon.

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 1

Computers and Programs Computers

1 Computers and Programs

In this chapter you are going to find out what a computer is and get an understanding of
the way that a computer program tells the computer what to do. You will discover what
you should do when starting to write a program, to ensure that you achieve a “happy
ending” for you and your customer. Finally, you will take a look at programming in
general and the C# language in particular.

1.1 Computers
Before we consider programming, we are going to consider computers. This is an
important thing to do, because it sets the context in which all the issues of
programming itself are placed.

1.1.1 An Introduction to Computers

Qn: Why does a bee hum? One way of describing a computer is as an electric box which hums. This, while
Ans: Because it doesn't know technically correct, can lead to significant amounts of confusion, particularly
the words! amongst those who then try to program a fridge. A better way is to describe it as:

A device which processes information according to

instructions it has been given.
This general definition rules out fridges but is not exhaustive. However, for our
purposes it will do. The instructions you give to the computer are often called a
program. The business of using a computer is often called programming. This is not
what most people do with computers. Most people do not write programs. They use
programs written by other people. We must therefore make a distinction between users
and programmers. A user has a job which he or she finds easier to do on a computer
running the appropriate program. A programmer has a masochistic desire to tinker with
the innards of the machine. One of the golden rules is that you never write your own
program if there is already one available, i.e. a keen desire to process words with a
computer should not result in you writing a word processor!
However, because you will often want to do things with computers which have not
been done before, and further because there are people willing to pay you to do it, we
are going to learn how to program as well as use a computer.
Before we can look at the fun packed business of programming though it is worth
looking at some computer terminology:

1.1.2 Hardware and Software

If you ever buy a computer, you are not just getting a box which hums. The box, to be
useful, must also have sufficient built-in intelligence to understand simple commands
to do things. At this point we must draw a distinction between the software of a
computer system and the hardware.
Hardware is the physical side of the system. Essentially if you can kick it, and it stops
working when immersed in a bucket of water, it is hardware. Hardware is the
impressive pile of lights and switches in the corner that the salesman sold you.
Software is what makes the machine tick. If a computer has a soul, it keeps it in its
software. Software uses the physical ability of the hardware, which can run programs,
to do something useful. It is called software because it has no physical existence and it

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 2

Computers and Programs Computers

is comparatively easy to change. Software is the voice which says "Computer Running"
in a Star Trek film.
Windows 10 is an example of All computers are sold with some software. Without it they would just be a novel
an operating system. It gives and highly expensive heating system. The software which comes with a computer is
computer programs a often called its Operating System. The Operating System makes the machine usable.
platform on which they can It looks after all the information held on the computer and provides lots of
execute. commands to allow you to manage things. It also lets you run programs, ones you
have written and ones from other people. You will have to learn to talk to an
operating system so that you can create your C# programs and get them to go.

1.1.3 Data and Information

People use the words data and information interchangeably. They seem to think that
one means the other. I regard data and information as two different things:
Data is the collection of ons and offs which computers store and manipulate.
Information is the interpretation of the data by people to mean something. Strictly
speaking computers process data, humans work on information. As an example, the
computer could hold the following bit pattern in memory somewhere:
11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000
You could regard this as meaning:
"you are 256 pounds overdrawn at the bank"
or
"you are 256 feet below the surface of the ground"
or
"eight of the thirty two light switches are off"
The transition from data to information is usually made when the human reads the
output. So why am I being so pedantic? (pedantic means being fussy about something
being exactly right) Because it is vital to remember that a computer does not "know"
what the data it is processing actually means. As far as the computer is concerned data
is just patterns of bits, it is the user who gives meaning to these patterns. Remember
this when you get a bank statement which says that you have £8,388,608 in your
account!

Data Processing
Computers are data processors. Information is fed into them; they do something with it,
and then generate further information. A computer program tells the computer what to
do with the information coming in. A computer works on data in the same way that a
sausage machine works on meat, something is put in one end, some processing is
performed, and something comes out of the other end:

Data Computer Data

This makes a computer a very A program is unaware of the data it is processing in the same way that a sausage
good "mistake amplifier", as machine is unaware of what meat is. Put a bicycle into a sausage machine and it will
well as a useful thing to try to make sausages out of it. Put invalid data into a computer and it will do equally
blame..... useless things. It is only us people who actually give meaning to the data (see above).
As far as the computer is concerned data is just stuff coming in which has to be
manipulated in some way.
A computer program is just a sequence of instructions which tell a computer what to do
with the data coming in and what form the data sent out will have.

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 3

 Computers and Programs Programs and Programming

Note that the data processing side of computers, which you might think is entirely
reading and writing numbers, is much more than that, examples of typical data
processing applications are:
Digital Watch: A micro-computer in your watch is taking pulses from a crystal and
requests from buttons, processing this data and producing a display which tells you the
time.
Car: A micro-computer in the engine is taking information from sensors telling it the
current engine speed, road speed, oxygen content of the air, setting of the accelerator
etc and producing voltages out which control the setting of the carburettor, timing of
the spark etc, to optimise the performance of the engine.
CD Player: A computer is taking a signal from the disk and converting it into the
sound that you want to hear. At the same time, it is keeping the laser head precisely
positioned and also monitoring all the buttons in case you want to select another part of
the disk.
Games Console: A computer is taking instructions from the controllers and using
them to manage the artificial world that it is creating for the person playing the game.
Note that some of these data processing applications are merely applying technology to
existing devices to improve the way they work. However, the CD player and games
console could not be made to work without built-in data processing ability.
Most reasonably complex devices contain data processing components to optimise
their performance and some exist only because we can build in intelligence. It is into
this world that we, as software writers are moving. It is important to think of the
business of data processing as much more than working out the company payroll,
reading in numbers and printing out results. These are the traditional uses of
computers.
Note that this "raises the As software engineers it is inevitable that a great deal of our time will be spent fitting
stakes" in that the data processing components into other devices to drive them. You will not press a
consequences of software switch to make something work, you will press a switch to tell a computer to make it
failing could be very work. These embedded systems will make computer users of everybody, and we will
damaging. have to make sure that they are not even aware that there is a computer in there!
You should also remember that seemingly innocuous programs can have life
threatening possibilities. For example, a doctor may use a spread sheet to calculate
doses of drugs for patients. In this case a defect in the program could result in illness or
even death (note that I don't think that doctors actually do this – but you never know..)

Programmer’s Point: At the bottom there is always hardware

It is important that you remember your programs are actually executed by a piece of hardware which has physical
limitations. You must make sure that the code you write will actually fit in the target machine and operate at a
reasonable speed. The power and capacity of modern computers makes this less of an issue than in the past, but
you should still be aware of these aspects. I will mention them when appropriate.

1.2 Programs and Programming

I tell people I am a "Software Programming is a black art. It is the kind of thing that you grudgingly admit to doing
Engineer". at night with the blinds drawn and nobody watching. Tell people that you program
computers and you will get one of the following responses:
1. A blank stare.
2. "That's interesting", followed by a long description of the double glazing that
they have just had fitted.
3. Asked to solve every computer problem that they have ever had, and ever will
have.
4. A look which indicates that you can't be a very good one as they all drive
Ferraris and tap into the Bank of England at will.

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 4

Computers and Programs Programs and Programming

Programming is defined by most people as earning huge sums of money doing

something which nobody can understand.
Programming is defined by me as deriving and expressing a solution to a given
problem in a form which a computer system can understand and execute.
One or two things fall out of this definition:
• You need to be able to solve the problem yourself before you can write a
program to do it.
• The computer has to be made to understand what you are trying to tell it to do.

1.2.1 What is a Programmer?

And remember just how much I like to think of a programmer as a bit like a plumber! A plumber will arrive at a job
plumbers earn…. with a big bag of tools and spare parts. Having looked at it for a while, tut tutting, he
will open his bag and produce various tools and parts, fit them all together and solve
your problem. Programming is just like this. You are given a problem to solve. You
have at your disposal a big bag of tricks, in this case a programming language. You
look at the problem for a while and work out how to solve it and then fit the bits of
the language together to solve the problem you have got. The art of programming is
knowing which bits you need to take out of your bag of tricks to solve each part of
the problem.

From Problem to Program

Programming is not about The art of taking a problem and breaking it down into a set of instructions you can
mathematics, it is about give a computer is the interesting part of programming. Unfortunately, it is also the
organization and structure. most difficult part of programming as well. If you think that learning to program is
simply a matter of learning a programming language you are very wrong. In fact, if
you think that programming is simply a matter of coming up with a program which
solves a problem you are equally wrong!
There are many things you must consider when writing a program; not all of them are
directly related to the problem in hand. I am going to start on the basis that you are
writing your programs for a customer. He or she has a problem and would like you to
write a program to solve it. We shall assume that the customer knows even less about
computers than we do!
Initially we are not even going to talk about the programming language, type of
computer or anything like that; we are simply going to make sure that we know what
the customer wants.

Solving the Wrong Problem

Coming up with a perfect solution to a problem the customer has not got is something
which happens surprisingly often in the real world. Many software projects have failed
because the problem that they solved was the wrong one. The developers of the system
quite simply did not find out what was required, but instead created what they thought
was required. The customers assumed that, since the developers had stopped asking
them questions, the right thing was being built, and only at the final handover was the
awful truth revealed. It is therefore very important that a programmer holds off making
something until they know exactly what is required.
The worst thing you can say This is a kind of self-discipline. Programmers pride themselves on their ability to
to a customer is "I can do come up with solutions, so as soon as they are given a problem, they immediately
that". Instead you should start thinking of ways to solve it, this is almost a reflex action. What you should do is
think "Is that what the think "Do I really understand what the problem is?" Before you solve a problem, you
customer wants?" should make sure that you have a watertight definition of what the problem is, which
both you and the customer agree on.
In the real world such a definition is sometimes called a Functional Design
Specification or FDS. This tells you exactly what the customer wants. Both you and the

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 5

 Computers and Programs Programs and Programming

customer sign it, and the bottom line is that if you provide a system which behaves
according to the design specification the customer must pay you. Once you have got
your design specification, then you can think about ways of solving the problem. You
might think that this is not necessary if you are writing a program for yourself; there is
no customer to satisfy. This is not true. Writing some form of specification forces you
to think about your problem at a very detailed level. It also forces you to think about
what your system is not going to do and sets the expectations of the customer right at
the start.

Programmer’s Point: The specification must always be there

I have written many programs for money. I would never write a program without getting a solid specification first.
This is true even (or perhaps especially) if I do a job for a friend.
Modern development techniques put the customer right at the heart of the development
and involve them in the design process. These work on the basis that it is very hard
(and actually not that useful) to get a definitive specification at the start of a project.
You as a developer don’t really know much about the customer’s business and they
don’t know the limitations and possibilities of the technology. With this in mind it is a
good idea to make a series of versions of the solution and discuss each with the
customer before moving on to the next one. This is called prototyping.

1.2.2 A Simple Problem

Consider the scenario; you are sitting in your favourite chair in the pub contemplating
the universe when you are interrupted in your reverie by a friend of yours who sells
double glazing for a living. He knows you are a programmer of sorts and would like
your help in solving a problem which he has:
He has just started making his own window units and is looking for a program which
will do the costing of the materials for him. He wants to just enter the dimensions of
the window and then get a printout of the cost to make the window, in terms of the
amount of wood and glass required.
"This looks like a nice little earner" you think, and once you have agreed to a price you
start work. The first thing you need to do is find out exactly what the customer wants
you to do...

Specifying the Problem

When considering how to write the specification of a system there are three important
things:
• What information flows into the system.
• What flows out of the system.
• What the system does with the information.
There are lots of ways of representing this information in the form of diagrams, for
now we will stick with written text when specifying each of the stages:

Information going in
In the case of our immortal double-glazing problem we can describe the information
as:
• The width of a window.
• The height of the window.

Information coming out

The information that our customer wants to see is:
• the area of glass required for the window
• the length of wood required to build a frame.

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 6

 Computers and Programs Programs and Programming

You can see what we need if you take a look at the diagram below:

Height of
Window

Width of Window

The area of the glass is the width multiplied by the height. To make the frame we will
need two pieces of wood the width of the window, and two pieces of wood the height
of the window.

Programmer’s Point: metadata is important

Information about information is called metadata. The word meta in this situation implies a "stepping back" from
the problem to allow it to be considered in a broader context. In the case of our window program the metadata will
tell us more about the values that are being used and produced, specifically the units in which the information is
expressed and the valid range of values that the information may have. For any quantity that you represent in a
program that you write you must have at least this level of metadata.

What the program actually does

The program can derive the two values according to the following equations:
glass area = width of window * height of window
wood length = (width of window + height of window) * 2

Putting in more detail

We now have a fairly good understanding of what our program is going to do for us.
Being sensible and far thinking people we do not stop here, we now have to worry
about how our program will decide when the information coming in is actually valid.
This must be done in conjunction with the customer, he or she must understand that if
information is given which fits within the range specified, your program will regard the
data as valid and act accordingly.
In the case of the above we could therefore expand the definition of data coming in as:
• The width of the window, in metres and being a value between 0.5 Metres
and 3.5 metres inclusive.
• The height of the window, in metres and being a value between 0.5
metres and 2.0 metres inclusive.
Note that we have also added units to our description, this is very important - perhaps
our customer buys wood from a supplier who sells by the foot, in which case our
output description should read:
• The area of glass required for the window, in square metres. Remember
that we are selling double glazing, so two panes will be required.
• The length of wood required for the frame, given in feet using the
conversion factor of 3.25 feet per metre.
Note that both you and the Having written this all up in a form that both you and the customer can understand,
customer must understand we must then both sign the completed specification, and work can commence.
the document!

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 7

Computers and Programs Programs and Programming

Proving it Works
In a real world you would now create a test which will allow you to prove that the
program works, you could for example say:
“If I give the above program the inputs 2 metres high and 1 metre wide the program
should tell me I need 4 square metres of glass and 19.5 feet of wood.”
The test procedure which is designed for a proper project should test out all possible
states within the program, including the all-important error conditions. In a large
system the person writing the program may have to create a test harness which is fitted
around the program and will allow it to be tested. Both the customer and the supplier
should agree on the number and type of the tests to be performed and then sign a
document describing these.
Testing is a very important part of program development. There is even one
development technique where you write the tests before you write the actual program
that does the job. This is actually a good idea, and one we will explore later. In terms of
code production, you can expect to write as much code to test your solution as is in the
solution itself. Remember this when you are working out how much work is involved
in a particular job.

Getting Paid
Better yet, set up a phased At this point the supplier knows that if a system is created which will pass all the
payment system so that you tests the customer will have no option but to pay for the work! Note also that because
get some money as the system the design and test procedures have been frozen, there is no ambiguity which can
is developed. lead to the customer requesting changes to the work although of course this can still
happen!
The good news for the developer is that if changes are requested these can be viewed in
the context of additional work, for which they can expect to be paid.

Customer Involvement
Note also in a "proper" system the customer will expect to be consulted as to how the
program will interact with the user, sometimes even down to the colour of the letters on
the display! Remember that one of the most dangerous things that a programmer can
think is "This is what he wants"! The precise interaction with the user - what the
program does when an error is encountered, how the information is presented etc., is
something which the customer is guaranteed to have strong opinions about. Ideally all
this information should be put into the specification, which should include layouts of
the screens and details of which keys should be pressed at each stage. Quite often
prototypes will be used to get an idea of how the program should look and feel.
Fact: If you expect to derive If this seems that you are getting the customer to help you write the program then
the specification as the you are exactly right! Your customer may have expected you to take the description
project goes on either you will of the problem and go into your back room - to emerge later with the perfect solution
fail to do the job, or you will to the problem. This is not going to happen. What will happen is that you will come
end up performing five times up with something which is about 60% right. The customer will tell you which bits
the work! look OK and which bits need to be changed. You then go back into your back room,
muttering under your breath, and emerge with another system to be approved. Again,
Rob's law says that 60% of the wrong 40% will now be OK, so you accept changes
for the last little bit and again retreat to your keyboard....
The customer thinks that this is great, reminiscent of a posh tailor who produces the
perfect fit after numerous alterations. All the customer does is look at something,
suggests changes and then wait for the next version to find something wrong with.
They will get a bit upset when the delivery deadline goes by without a finished product
appearing but they can always cheer themselves up again by suing you.
Actually, we have come full circle here, because I did mention earlier that prototyping
is a good way to build a system when you are not clear on the initial specification.
However, if you are going to use prototypes it is a good thing to plan for this from the

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 8

 Computers and Programs Programming Languages

start rather than ending up doing extra work because your initial understanding of the
problem was wrong.
Fact: More implementations If your insistence on a cast iron specification forces the customer to think about
fail because of inadequate exactly what the system is supposed to do and how it will work, all to the better. The
specification than for any customer may well say "But I am paying you to be the computer expert, I know
other reason! nothing about these machines". This is no excuse. Explain the benefits of "Right
First Time" technology and if that doesn't work produce a revolver and force the
issue!
Again, if I could underline in red I would: All the above apply if you are writing the
program for yourself. You are your own worst customer!
You may think that I am labouring a point here; the kind of simple systems we are
going to create as we learn to program are going to be so trivial that the above
techniques are far too long winded. You are wrong. One very good reason for doing
this kind of thing is that it gets most of the program written for you - often with the
help of the customer. When we start with our double glazing program, we now know
that we have to:
read in the width
verify the value
read in the height
verify the value
calculate width times height times 2 and print it
calculate ( width + height ) * 2 * 3.25 and print it
The programming portion of the job is now simply converting the above description
into a language which can be used in a computer.......

Programmer’s Point: Good programmers are good communicators

The art of talking to a customer and finding out what he/she wants is just that, an art. If you want to call yourself
a proper programmer you will have to learn how to do this. One of the first things you must do is break down the
idea of "I am writing a program for you" and replace it with "We are creating a solution to a problem". You do not
work for your customers, you work with them. This is very important, particularly when you might have to do
things like trade with the customer on features or price.

1.3 Programming Languages

Once we know what the program should do (specification), and how we are going to
determine whether it has worked or not (test) we now need to express our program in a
form that the computer can work with.
You might ask the question "Why do we need programming languages, why can we
not use something like English?" There are two answers to this one:
1. Computers are too stupid to understand English.
2. English would make a lousy programming language.
Please note that this does not To take the first point. We cannot make very clever computers at the moment.
imply that tape worms would Computers are made clever by putting software into them, and there are limits to the
make good programmers! size of program that we can create and the speed at which it can talk to us. At the
moment, by using the most advanced software and hardware, we can make
computers which are about as clever as a tape worm. Tape worms do not speak very
good English; therefore we cannot make a computer which can understand English.
The best we can do is to get a computer to make sense of a very limited language
which we use to tell it what to do.
Time Flies like an Arrow. To take the second point. English as a language is packed full of ambiguities. It is
Fruit Flies like a Banana! very hard to express something in an unambiguous way using English. If you do not
believe me, ask any lawyer!

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 9

 Computers and Programs C#

Programming languages get around both of these problems. They are simple enough to
be made sense of by computer programs and they reduce ambiguity.

Programmer’s Point: The language is not that important

There are a great many programming languages around, during your career you will have to learn more than just
one. C# is a great language to start programming in, but do not think that it is the only language you will ever
learn.

1.4 C#
There are literally hundreds We are going to learn a language called C# (pronounced C sharp). If you ever make
of programming languages the mistake of calling the language C hash you will show your ignorance straight
around; you will need to know away! C# is a very flexible and powerful programming language with an interesting
at least 3! history. It was developed by Microsoft Corporation for a variety of reasons, some
technical, some political and others marketing.
C# bears a strong resemblance to the C++ and Java programming languages, having
borrowed (or improved) features provided by these languages. The origins of both Java
and C++ can be traced back to a language called C, which is a highly dangerous and
entertaining language which was invented in the early 1970s. C is famous as the
language the UNIX operating system was written in, and was specially designed for
this.

1.4.1 Dangerous C
I referred to C as a dangerous language. So what do I mean by that? Consider the chain
saw. If I, Rob Miles, want to use a chainsaw I will hire one from a shop. As I am not an
experienced chain saw user I would expect it to come with lots of built in safety
features such as guards and automatic cut outs. These will make me much safer with
the thing but will probably limit the usefulness of the tool, i.e. because of all the safety
stuff I might not be able to cut down certain kinds of tree. If I was a real lumberjack I
would go out and buy a professional chainsaw which has no safety features whatsoever
but can be used to cut down most anything. If I make a mistake with the professional
tool I could quite easily lose my leg, something the amateur machine would not let
happen.
In programming terms what this means is that C lacks some safety features provided by
other programming languages. This makes the language much more flexible.
However, if I do something stupid C will not stop me, so I have a much greater chance
of crashing the computer with a C program than I do with a safer language.

Programmer’s Point: Computers are always stupid

I reckon that you should always work on the basis that any computer will tolerate no errors on your part and
anything that you do which is stupid will always cause a disaster! This concentrates the mind wonderfully.

1.4.2 Safe C#
The C# language attempts to get the best of both worlds in this respect. A C# program
can contain managed or unmanaged parts. The managed code is fussed over by the
system which runs it. This makes sure that it is hard (but probably not impossible) to
crash your computer running managed code. However, all this fussing comes at a price,
causing your programs to run more slowly.
To get the maximum possible performance, and enable direct access to parts of the
underlying computer system, you can mark your programs as unmanaged. An
unmanaged program goes faster, but if it crashes it is capable of taking the computer

C# Programming © Rob Miles 2016 10

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