March 2007

CSE 142: Computer Programming I

Purpose:

• To teach basic programming-in-the-small abilities and concepts, with procedural/functional abstraction and simple built-in datatype manipulation the highlights.
• To teach basic abilities of writing, executing, and debugging programs.

Precondition Concepts:

• high-school algebra (symbolic expressions and formulas)

Precondition Abilities:

Precondition Skills:

Postcondition Concepts:

• goals of programming
  • correctness
  • maintainability (programming style, structure)
• specification vs. design vs. implementation
  • informal pre/post conditions, invariants, side effects
  • stepwise refinement
• simple data types
  • variables, values, and types
  • operators, precedence, and associativity
  • numbers (integer and floating point)
  • booleans
  • characters
  • strings
  • one-dimensional arrays
  • classes
• simple control structures
  • sequencing
  • input and output
  • conditional evaluation
  • iteration
  • nested conditionals and iteration
• procedural, functional abstraction
  • definition vs. invocation
  • parameter passing
    • formals vs. actuals
    • call-by-value vs. call-by-reference
  • return types and values
  • simple variable scoping rules
    • global vs. local
• external libraries
  • string operations
  • terminal vs. file I/O
  • simple graphics

Postcondition Abilities:

• carry out simple program development process
  • read others' code
  • extend others' code
  • write new code from scratch, e.g. up to about 300 lines long
  • document programs
  • hand-simulate programs
  • debug programs
  • develop good test suites
• decompose solution into procedures & functions
  • (on the order of 3-15 small procedures)
• use simple programming environment tools:
  • editor
  • compiler/interpreter
• use reference manuals and on-line resources to get information

Postcondition Skills:

• simple programming skills in Java