↓Skip to main content

cs2370 Notes: 23 Mid Semester Review

··2 mins

Why write computer programs? #

  • Computers run the world
  • Programs run the computers
  • Code vs. Law
    • Automatic speed limits vs. police judgement
    • DRM on movies vs. fair use

Software Setup #

  • Most dev environments take some setup.
  • We’re specifically using a python setup with
    • The miniconda package manager.
    • The Spyder editor / IDE

Python code #

Overview:

  • A series of statements
  • Executed in order, top to bottom
    • import statements cause code from other files to run
  • Execution of blocks (indented code after a colon) may be conditional or delayed.
  • Functions are an important case of delayed code blocks
  • Most of the execution order of a program is about a bunch of functions calling each other.

Parts of Speech:

  • Literals
  • Operators
    • Arithmetic of numbers and strings
  • Function calls
  • Expressions vs. statements

Control flow:

  • If / Else
  • While
  • For-each
  • For-range

Design Recipe #

Core steps:

  • Stub with names
  • Purpose statement
  • Types
  • Tests
  • Standard pattern
  • Body

Standard patterns:

  • Atomic data; boring.
  • More complex data, two basic cases:
    • What do we do with a list?
    • How do we build a list to return?

Data #

  • Lists
  • Tuples / Structs
  • Sets
  • Dictionaries
    • Quick dictionary review

Graphical programs with the sim library #

Computational complexity #

  • There’s more than one way to do it.
  • If you do it too slow a way, you’re wasting resources.
  • If you do it too complicated a way, you’re wasting other resources.

Next topics #

  • A little more with dictionaries
  • Classes and methods
  • Then, we’re going to try to solve a hard problem.