nashville-software-school / bangazon-inc

Curriculum for the C# web development full-time back-end course.

The Backend

You made it

As you know by now, at NSS we focus on pragmatic, hands-on learning. To that end, we're going to spend most of our time focused on building a powerful, easy-to-use, multi-user blogging platform called Tabloid^TM*.

* Tabloid is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bangazon Inc.

Orientation

We'll spend the first few weeks orienting you to .NET, C#, SQL, and a new set of tools and techniques for building complex applications.

1. Installation of required tools.
2. Introduction to the C# language.
3. Concepts of sustainable, scalable, object-oriented software development.
4. Overview of server-side development ecosystem
5. How the Internet works
6. Inheritance, composition, and aggregation
7. Entity relationships
8. Structured Query Language (SQL)

At the end of orientation, you will build a command line prototype of the Tabloid application.

Web Applications using Server-side Rendering

After orientation's focus on the command line development, we'll turn to web applications using Microsoft's powerful, open source ASP.NET Core framework.

We'll start with building server-side rendered web apps using ASP.NET Core MVC. These applications will generate HTML on the server and send it to the browser.

We'll wrap up this phase of the course by building an MVP of Tabloid.

Full Stack Web Applications

Finally, we'll end the course by learning to build a back-end API using ASP.NET Core Web API. This will give us the opportunity to build a dynamic front-end in React.

In the final group project we'll take two sprints to build Tabloid as a full stack application with a .NET back-end and a React front-end.

Capstone

After we've covered the course material, you'll wrap up your time at NSS by building a capstone project to demonstrate your learning.

Learning Objectives

Ready to get started?

Book 1 - Orientation

bangazon-inc's Issues

Change student exercises part 4 from dapper to ado.net

Move the "Iterating over planets" exercise from the List chapter to the Dictionary chapter

Since this exercise requires students to create a list of dictionaries, I think we shouldn't ask them to work on it until after we discuss dictionaries.

Replace "SongId" with "Id" in Intro to SQL Chapter

All mentions of SongId need to be changed to Id in the chapter. I believe it was just left over from when we were using sqlite.

Book 1 Supplementary Chapters Should be in C# (not python)

Remove sqlite from curriculum

Since we'll be introducing SQL Sever earlier in the course, we no longer need sqlite.

Remove mention of SQLite, tableplus and db browser from installations chapter.

Alternative exercise to Kill Nickelback

An exercise that includes

1. Lists
2. Dictionaries
3. LINQ

But does not include HashSets.

https://github.com/nashville-software-school/bangazon-inc/blob/master/book-1-orientation/chapters/KILL_NICKELBACK.md

Change student exercises part 3 from SQLite to SQL Server

Updates to C# Intro

1. Fix string.Format() comment.
2. Add else and else if to conditions section.

Add installing git to the windows installation instructions

Add instructions for installing git to the WINDOWS_PRO_INSTALLS.md chapter

https://gitforwindows.org/

Updates to Classes Chapter

There are errors in C# in the code in the Method section of this chapter

1. Property name case in Customer class
2. Add a string Transit property to DeliveryService
3. Add bool IsLocal property to Customer
4. Remove string.Format in Customer's FullName property.
5. In Program change reference to TransitType.Train enum value to a string, "train"

SQLite Setup Instructions

Official SQLite installation instructions are woefully out of date. Add real instructions to initial chapter.

Add CLI project to Orientation

Re-purpose https://github.com/nashville-software-school/csharp-bangazoncli-boilerplate

This should be a 2 - 3 day project.

Learning objectives:

1. C# fundamentals
   1. classes / data types
   2. variables / methods
   3. lists / dictionaries
   4. loops / conditionals
2. SQL
   1. basic CRUD
   2. more complex JOINs
3. Familiarize students with bangazon business domain

Use `AddWithValue` abstraction for SQL parameters

1. Should we show students this?
2. If so, when?

Introduce SSMS at the end of the last Bangazon Sprint

SSMS takes up too much time to download and install, and it takes up too much hard drive space. Instead of introducing it at the beginning just to run one query to create the database (and then not use it anymore), introduce it at the end when they have more context and when they have already used the Object Explorer more.

Remove mentions of Angular

Add challenges to Student Exercises part 4

Since some students finish all orientation exercises much earlier than others, we should add some challenges to the final exercise that reinforce the lessons from orientation. Students who have completed all other exercises can then work on these challenges.

Updates to Book 2 Chapter 10 "Starting your sprint"

1. Remove dapper
2. Add System.Data.SqlClient
3. Mention creating project with Visual Studio
4. Change connection string to "Server=localhost\SQLEXPRESS;Database=BangazonAPI;Trusted_Connection=True;"
5. Add bangazon.sql script

Remove mention of Visual Studio from "Debugging C# in Visual Studo Code" chapter

We'll get to debugging in VS later in the orientation.

Make sure to move the "getting started in the debugger" link to the debugging in vs chapter.

Move Visual Studio chapters to Orientation

We will introduce Visual Studio during orientation to give students some time to use it before jumping into group projects.

Review Try and Catch

During orientation, review Try and Catch.

Update "Intro to Visual Studio" chapter

1. Add discussion of Solutions and Projects.
2. Ask a junior instructor what other parts of VS need to be discussed in the intro.
3. Also ask a junior instructor to review the debugging in VS chapter.

Add more help references to lists chapter

List.Count
List.ForEach

Chapter on Razor components

Build a chapter around view components in Razor. Use my mini cart as a starting point. Make sure the corresponding view component is included.

Change student exercises part 4 from dapper to ado.net

Clarify language in Iterating Over Planets exercise in Dictionary chapter

Change the following instruction to something that suggests that each dictionary should have a planet name as a key and a probe name as a value.

Create another list containing dictionaries. Each dictionary will hold the name of a spacecraft that we have launched, and the name of the planet that it has visited. If it visited more than one planet, just pick one.

Add ctrl+shift+r shortcut to SSMS chapter

Updates to Collections section of C# Intro

Switch Array example to List
Add a for() loop along with the foreach loop
Change "collections" section title to "looping"

Move Windows installs to right before SQL

Currently a supplementary chapter, but move it to before they start working on SQL (week 2ish)

Change music history exercise to use SQL Server

Add instructions on how to set up the Controller to ASP.NET Web API Controllers Chapter

Students are needing clarification on which controller to pick/ how to set it up, so we'd like to add a quick instruction line on what to choose in order to build their controllers. This could go at the bottom when the students are starting to build the Student Exercises API.

Static methods and properties in C#

1. Create Utility class
2. Create static method DisplayStrings()
3. Instead of using foreach or ForEach(), use the Select() LINQ method to generate an IEnumerable<string> and then send that collection to DisplayStrings()

Update POST in Coffee Controller in ASP.NET Web API Controllers Chpt

Two edits to make to the Coffee Controller POST:

1. return CreatedAtRoute("GetCoffee", new { id = newId }, coffee); is out of scope and needs to be moved up a few lines.

2. cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@id", id)); isn't needed in the POST and can be removed.

Add GIFs and Example to the Debugging in VS Chapter

Add some animated gifs to show...

• Running the debugger
• Setting a breakpoint
• Opening Locals and Immediate Windows

Add a concrete example of using the debugger to find a bug in a real console application.

Add *.csproj file to ADO.NET Chapter

The DepartmentsAndEmployees.csproj file is needed since it has the reference to System.Data.SqlClient.

I think it makes sense to make the students copy and paste all the code instead of giving them a repo to clone because this is the first time they've done a real project in visual studio...but I'm open to other opinions, of course.

Automation test

Ignore

Investigate Azure Data Studio

Determine its usage in the community, and have C# instructors download and evaluate its ease of use for instruction.

Add a section on constructors to the User Defined Types chapter

The exercise asks students to create a constructor, but the chapter doesn't mention them.

Add the visual of SQL Joins to Introduction to SQL Chapter

Here is a link to the visual of SQL Joins that we want to add to the Intro to SQL Chapter:
https://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/Visual_SQL_Joins/Visual_SQL_JOINS_orig.jpg

Chapter on integration testing

Show students how to setup and configure as testing project for a solution. Explain Arrange, Act, Assert steps. Show how to do the following.

1. Check status code
2. Check content for expected strings
3. Check header content
4. How to post and check that resulting list/detail has the info

Update book 2 chapters to instruct students to use Visual Studio

The Book 2 chapters currently instruct students to use dotnet new webapi. Change this to instruct them to use visual studio `"File/New Project"

Chapter on using SignInManager and UserManager in Razor

For the final sprint, students use Identity Framework, and a few issues require them to show/hide HTML components based on the authentication status of the user. Either add a chapter, or add to the README of the boilerplate.

From _LoginPartial.cshtml

@using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity
@using Bangazon.Models

@inject SignInManager<ApplicationUser> SignInManager
@inject UserManager<ApplicationUser> UserManager

In _Layout.cshtml

@inject SignInManager<ApplicationUser> SignInManager
    @if (SignInManager.IsSignedIn(User))
    {
        @await Component.InvokeAsync("MiniCart")
    }

Replace C# Dictionary Planet exercise with a more appropriate one

It doesn't really show off the power of dictionaries because the only learning objective is learning the ContainsKey() method. We can do better.

Update or Remove the Microsoft Docs link in the Integration Testing chapter

Since we've moved this chapter to be used in the BangazonAPI sprint, I don't think it makes sense to have this link. The Microsoft Docs link in that chapter assumes that users have a basic understanding of Razor Pages and I believe that this might confuse students, especially if they take a look at the sample code.

Add SSMS Chapter to Orientation

Update Chinook for SQL Server use

1. Replace the link for the database with the SQL Server related one
2. Update the steps to implement the .sql file above
3. Replace all Sqlite related links

Data in Student Exercise Controllers- Part 5 Needs to be Updated

The JSON representation examples are not correct and need to be updated with correct data. Cohort, Instructor, and Student all need updates to the JSON representation.

Switch orientation Dapper chapter to ADO.NET

We won't introduce Dapper until the API sprint

Correct Appliance Example Code in ASP.NET Web API Controllers Chapter

The Appliance example needs a While loop instead of an If

Chapter & Boilerplate for Web API integration testing

Create a chapter in Book 2 that shows the basics of creating a test project for a Web API and implementing the following two packages.

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.TestHost;

To create an HttpClient in order to make requests to the API.

Here's my initial implementation of a client provider

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.TestHost;
using StudentExercisesAPI;
using System.Net.Http;

namespace TestStudentExercisesAPI
{
    class APIClientProvider
    {
        private TestServer server;
        public HttpClient Client { get; private set; }

        public APIClientProvider()
        {
            server = new TestServer(new WebHostBuilder().UseStartup<Startup>());
            Client = server.CreateClient();
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            server?.Dispose();
            Client?.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

Then create a class for writing all the facts that will make the requests to the different endpoints.

namespace TestStudentExercisesAPI
{

    public class TestStudents
    {
        [Fact]
        public async Task Test_Get_All()
        {

            using (var client = new APIClientProvider().Client)
            {
                var response = await client.GetAsync("/api/students");

                response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();

                string responseBody = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
                var responseObj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Student>>(responseBody);

                Assert.Equal(HttpStatusCode.OK, response.StatusCode);
            }
        }
    }
}

Change examples in API Controller chapter (book 4) to use ADO.NET instead of Dapper

Related to #57