Basics of Computing and Programming

This is a self-paced course that provides an Introduction to Computing and Programming.

The course will address the following topics, using the Python programming language:

• Positional number systems
• Hello World
• Numerical data types and arithmetic expressions
• Branching statements
• Iterative statements [Loops]
• Strings
• Functions
• Lists [Array-based sequences]

By the end of this course students should be able to:

• understand binary number systems and conversion to other number systems
• understand hexadecimal number systems and conversion to other number systems
• apply numeric and string data types to represent information
• apply variables in program development
• analyze assignment and apply its components in program development
• apply basic I/O operations with different data types
• design expressions using arithmetic operations (including understanding their limitations, such as integer truncation, round-off error, division by zero, narrowing and widening conversions, casting, precedence, and standard math library functions)
• design expressions using relational operators (including understanding floating point equality)
• design expressions using logical operators (including short-circuit)
• design selection statements (including nested selection)
• design repetition statements (including count-controlled versus event-controlled, sentinel-controlled)
• design simple data structures using lists (including using loops with lists and multi-dimensional lists

Course Outline:

• Week 1 - Positional number systems
• Week 2 - Hello World
• Week 3 - Numerical data types and arithmetic expressions
• Week 4 - Branching statements
• Week 5 - Iterative statements [Loops]
• Week 6 - Strings
• Week 7 - Functions
• Week 8 - Lists [Array-based sequences]
• Week 9 - Exam