Weekly Status Report #5

This week was very clear and defined in the sense of what I wanted to accomplish, and what I did accomplish. At the beginning of the week, after our lesson, we were given an assignment on developing a payroll for a sales person at a coffee shop. My goal was to finish this program early, because I expected some bonus portion to be added as usual. This program had some inherent difficulty as we need to use CASE and IF...THEN statements to complete it. Despite the difficulty, I accomplished my goal of completing it early. This was also the only work we had for the week, which was obviously accomplished as well.

I have no work remaining from the week, as by completing the normal assignment combined with the bonus, I have finished all of this week's work. The bonus assignment which I also completed added some difficulty, but that was overcome in ways I shall explain in the challenges portion of this report. The bonus assignment was basically to add a menu, in which the user could input the hourly rates and tax rates, however, this was to be done using a Dialog Box. After the lesson and some help from friends, I managed to complete the bonus.

The difficulties I encountered this week were figuring out how to effectivley code the first part of the assignment and then successfully add in the bonus material. The bonus material was difficult because when trying to transfer information from the dialog box to the main form, everything transfered as "0". However, this was due to a typo, so overcoming this obstacle wasn't overtly difficult.


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Weekly Status Report #4

This week, I accomplished some significant work in both the realm of programming and preparation for the literacy test. Programming wise, I learned how input and read information from a Track Bar, and use it to complete a program all based around that input. That program also helped me accomplish come outside learning, by doing the extra portion. I learned how to change the colour of the program WHILE it was running, based on a variety of conditions. Preparing for the literacy test was all about Wednesday, when the teacher was absent. We were given an assignment to write an essay on web awareness, and I believe I did it quite well. I covered a variety of dangers and how to avoid them and also covered the advantages of the Internet.

My future goals include learning how to use other features (such as the Track Bar) to accomplish the same function my text boxes have been. Basically, I want to be able to utilize more aspects of the programs to gain input from the user. The work remaining from this week is limited, I need to modify my current program, the string program, so that all of the functions work correctly, and so that less errors occur is improper input is given.

The major challenge I faced this week was learning how to use a List Box. I knew how to create, move and add objects to the list box but I didn't know how to select the options to use them in my code. The way I went around solving this was to first try and define every option in the List Box. However, I couldn't figure out how to do this after a lot of time, so I asked a friend for help. Unfortunately, he was having the same problem. So, I resulted in asking the teacher for assistance, and after I was told what to do, it did seem really obvious.


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Weekly Status Report #3

The skills that I learned this week were all centered around Visual Basic. We got our first real taste at programming with it, and so far I have to say I've enjoyed it immensely. I learned how to do a few basic functions such as creating buttons, taking input from the user, and then using that input to preform a variety of mathematical functions, such as figuring out sums, products, averages and similar functions. The work I completed involved creating buttons, text boxes and applying the problem solving method, and flow charts and coverting it into code that Visual Basic could use. I completed 4 problems that used simple mathematical functions. We then learned about decision makingm and I completed 4 problems that involved decision making.

I have no work remaining from this week but I plan to try and work ahead, experimenting with the program to try and learn some of the functions of certain aspects of the Visual Basic program. I would like to be able to eventually create a program that I myself could actually use everyday at home, or once in a while. I know this will require a vast amount of work on my part to succesfully learn all I can and more from this class, but I am more than up to the challenge. My objectives for next will include downloading this program at home for potential personal programming, or school related use, and to learn how to do some programming on my own.

The problems that I encountered this week were all programming related, and I solved them by using the program, seeing what caused the error, and trying to rearrange the code, define more variables that were missing, or correct typos. Using this and the online "Help" feature I was able to overcome any issues I encountered, sometimes by consulting friends that were working around me. Overall, this was a very imformative and productive week.


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