Visual Basic Programming: Inheritance and Polymorphism

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/visual-basic-inheritance-polymorphism

Introduction

### Course Review: Visual Basic Programming: Inheritance and Polymorphism #### Overview The course "Visual Basic Programming: Inheritance and Polymorphism" is an essential part of a programming series designed to equip learners with the skills necessary to excel in real-world programming roles. This is the third installment in the series, and it introduces learners to some of the fundamental concepts that underpin modern programming practices. Key topics covered include advanced string operations and date manipulations, modeling and development of classes, and the use of collections in programming. The course structure comprises lectures, informative materials, and hands-on labs, allowing students to directly apply their learning by developing simple computer programs. To participate, learners must have access to a local machine capable of running a Visual Basic environment. #### Detailed Breakdown of the Syllabus 1. **File Input and Output** - In this opening module, learners will explore the critical concept of data persistence. Understanding how to write data to files in text and binary formats is paramount for any programmer looking to create applications that need to store user data or configuration settings. The hands-on experience of reading from and writing to files solidifies these concepts, ensuring students can implement them in future projects. 2. **Inheritance** - The second module delves into the "is-a" relationships synonymous with object-oriented programming. Inheritance allows for code reuse and simplifies complex codebases by having specialized classes derive from base classes. This section not only emphasizes the practical implementation of inheritance but also introduces exception handling—a necessary skill when managing runtime errors in your applications. 3. **Polymorphism** - Building upon the previous module, polymorphism allows programmers to write more generic and reusable code. It enables different classes to be treated as instances of the same class through a common interface. Understanding polymorphism is crucial for any aspiring programmer, as it fosters a deeper grasp of abstraction and code flexibility. 4. **Interfaces** - The final module focuses on interfaces, which facilitate a more advanced form of abstraction. By creating class signatures without implementation, programmers can design systems where a single class can belong to multiple taxonomies. This capability allows for greater modularity and makes it easier to develop scalable applications. The inclusion of interfaces is particularly beneficial when considering systems with diverse objects behaving similarly under certain conditions. #### Course Format and Style The format of the course is engaging and well-structured, balancing theoretical content with practical labs that encourage hands-on experience. Each module builds upon the last, creating a cohesive learning experience. Further, the labs are designed to reinforce and apply the concepts learned in lectures, which is invaluable for mastering the material. #### Recommendation If you're considering a career in programming, especially in environments utilizing Visual Basic, I highly recommend enrolling in "Visual Basic Programming: Inheritance and Polymorphism". The course is comprehensive, making complex concepts accessible through thoughtful explanations and applications. The knowledge gained here forms a solid foundation for more advanced programming concepts and practices. #### Conclusion In summary, this course is a stepping stone into the world of object-oriented programming with Visual Basic. With its structured approach to inheritance, polymorphism, and interfaces, learners will emerge more capable and confident, ready to tackle real-world programming challenges. Don't miss the opportunity to enhance your skills in such a crucial area of programming. Get started today!

Syllabus

File Input and Output

In this module, we look at how we can persist data to files so that it will exist beyond a single execution of a program. We will look at how we can write data to files in both text and binary formats. We follow-up with ways to read that data back into the state of an executing program.

In this module, we look at how to implement the is-a relationships we modeled earlier in our UML diagrams through the use of Inheritance. Inheritance provides additional ways to abstract code in taxonomies where base classes share code with specialized versions of the classes. We will add a discussion about exceptions work in Visual Basic now that we can discuss inheritance.

In this module, we extend our implementation of the is-a relationships so that our code can work with specializations of a class without knowing the specifics of the specialization. This level of abstraction is known as polymorphism. Polymorphism provides additional ways to abstract code to work on objects in a taxonomy.

In this module, we continue our deep dive into the implementation of the is-a relationships. In our early work, we developed taxonomies for the purposes of abstraction. Now we want to think about the situation where a class could be in several taxonomies. This level of abstraction is known as an interface in modern programming. Interfaces provide signatures but not implementation so that we can use Polymorphism on objects that fall in multiple taxonomies.