Introduction to Computer Programming: Course Overview and Terminologies, Exercises of Law

Download Introduction to Computer Programming: Course Overview and Terminologies and more Exercises Law in PDF only on Docsity!

Introduction to Computer Programming

Ogunbiyi, D.T.

Faculty of Science Basic and Applied

Sciences.

Department of Information & Communication

Technology.

Course Description

Introduction; Programming concepts and properties, problem

solving strategies/methods, program implementation strategies,

concept and properties. Algorithm development, designing, coding,

debugging and documenting programs, programming steps,

structure, Python programming.

Course Weekly Schedule (Week 1-6)

Week 1: Introduction to Computer Programming Week 2: Programming Terminologies Week 3: Problem Solving and Design Process Week 4: Introduction to Python Programming Week 5: Python Data Types and Variables Week 6: Strings

Week 1: Introduction to Computer Programming

● (^) Computers can do such a wide variety of things because they can be programmed. ● (^) Programs are instructions that allow the computer perform specific tasks ● (^) Programming is the art of writing programs. ● (^) All software or applications we run are programs performing tasks from text editors, to games, websites, banking applications etc.

Programming Paradigms and Languages

● (^) A paradigm is a standard or an approach to solve problems using a programming language. ● (^) Types include: ○ (^) Imperative programming: C; Fortran; Basic ○ (^) Procedural: C; C++; Java; Pascal ○ (^) Object oriented programming: Simula; Java, C++; Ruby; Python ○ (^) Logic programming: prolog ○ (^) Functional programming: Javascript; Lisp, Scala

Compiled Vs Interpreted Languages

● (^) Compilers and interpreters take human-readable code and convert it to computer-readable machine code. ● (^) Interpreter translates one statement of a program at a time by a program (interpreter) while compiler scans the entire program and translates the whole of it by the target machine. ● (^) Examples of compiled languages: C, C++, Go, Rust, Haskell ● (^) Examples of interpreted languages: Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PHP

Programming Terminologies

● (^) Declaration: a statement describing an identifier, such as the name of a variable or a function. They are important because they inform the compiler or interpreter what the identifying word means, and how the identified thing should be used. ● (^) Exception: A special, unexpected and anomalous condition encountered during the execution of a program. ● (^) Libraries: A ``program library'' is simply a file containing compiled code (and data) that is to be incorporated later into a program ● (^) Runtime: is the time period during which a program is running on a computer. ● (^) Statement: a statement is a single line of code written legally in a programming language that expresses an action to be carried out.

Programming Errors

● (^) Syntax errors: A syntax error is an error in the source code of a program. Since computer programs must follow strict syntax to compile correctly, any aspects of the code that do not conform to the syntax of the programming language will produce a syntax error. E.g ○ (^) Spelling mistakes ○ (^) Missing quotes or brackets ○ (^) Using uppercase characters in keywords ○ (^) Missing out a terminating statement

Week 3: Problem Solving and Design Process

● (^) Sequential process of analyzing information related to a given situation and generating appropriate response options. ● (^) In programming, problem solving is very vital to developing the best solution to given situation.

Problem Solving Steps

1. Understand the Problem
2. Formulate a Model
3. Develop an Algorithm
4. Write the Program
5. Test the Program
6. Evaluate the Solution

Flowchart Symbols

Example 1: Addition of two numbers

Start the program

Read first number num

Read second number num

Sum both numbers

Print result

End program

Start Read num Read num Sum = num1 + num Print sum End Pseudocode Flowchart

Control Structures

● (^) Sequence ● (^) Branching/Condition ● (^) Looping/Iteration/Repetition

Links for further reading

https://hackr.io/blog/programming-terms-definitions-for-beginners https://www.codecademy.com/articles/fwd-js-methods-functions https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/introduction-to-computer-programming-and-c omputer-science-course/ https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_ref_string.asp