CSC 221: Introduction to Programming
Course Overview         Fall 2018

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE overview & history: hardware vs. software, technology generations, ... problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, communication skills SCRATCH PROGRAMMING simple, visual introduction to programming concepts actions (e.g., move), conditionals, loops, event-handlers, variables simple object interaction via sensing and broadcasts introduction to object-oriented concepts sprites = objects, sprite properties = fields, script blocks = methods PYTHON LANGUAGE FEATURES variables: basic data types: numbers, strings, Booleans naming conventions, assignment statements, expressions immutable vs. mutable values, variable scope functions def, parameters, return statements, doc strings built-in functions (print, abs, max, min), importing modules (random, math) conditional execution if statement, Boolean operators (<, <=, >, >=, ==, !=, and or, not) if (1-way), if-else (2-way), cascading if-else, elif (multi-way) repetition for loops, counter/range-driven while loops, condition-driven input/output input function, reading from a file, read vs. readline print function, writing to a file, write sequences common operations/functions: +, *, len, indexing, slicing traversal: by item, by index strings (sequences of characters, immutable) methods: isalpha, capitalize, upper, strip, find, replace, ... examples: palindrome, rotation, cipher lists (sequences of arbitrary items, mutable) methods: count, index, sort, insert, remove, ... list comprehensions examples: list of words, tweet data, letter counts, hand of cards classes/objects class definition, fields, methods, self special methods: __init__, __str__, __eq__, __lt__, __le__ examples: Turtle, Die, Coin, Card, DeckOfCards PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES conditionals for alternatives e.g., recognize doubles, recognize a vowel, distinguish flush/full house loops for repetition (conditional while loops, range-driven for loops) counters & sums for collecting data e.g., roll dice until doubles, count number of vowels, read file until done String traversal/concatenation for manipulating text e.g., construct acronym, encode a message, get avg word length input for user input; read/readline/write for files e.g., interactive card game, reading text from a file & splitting into words lists for storing and accessing arbitrary data e.g., words from a line of text, tweet data, cards in a deck object-oriented design classes model real-world entities; objects are instances of those classes fields maintain state of an object; methods implement behaviors e.g., DeckOfCards field (list of cards), methods (shuffle, deal_card, add_card, num_cards, ...) agile development high-level (usually OO) design -> simplified prototype -> augment/revise ASSIGNMENTS: 1. Programming concepts (in Scratch) 2. Python statements & modules (wins & time & monograms) 3. Functions (rewriting HW2 & volleyball simulations) 4. Strings & text files (rotating substitution cipher) 5. Files & lists (literary fingerprint) 6. Lists & data (tweet statistics) 7. Classes & OOP (interactive FullFlush game)