COSC 235: Programming and Problem Solving Chapter 1: The magic of Python Instructor: Dr. X 1

How to get help Visit me during office hours or setup an appointment Visit Olin 112 A, Sun-Thurs 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Use Piazza for your questionsPiazza Code early and often!! 2

3 How to get help

Topics What is Computer Science? What do Computer Scientists: – Study – Do What is hardware? What is software? What is a programming language? What is the difference between compilers and interpreters? Programming: How does chaos work? 4

What is computer science? “Computers are to computer science what telescopes are to astronomy.” – E. Dijkstra The study of what can be computed Computer scientists… (what do they do, what do they look like?) Computer scientists 5

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The Universal Machine “a machine that stores and manipulates information under the control of a changeable program.” Two key elements: – Manipulating information… data! – Changeable program

The Universal Machine What is a computer program? 8

Program Power lee-joins-x-men-apocalypse/123 9

Why do you want to learn how to code? 10

Hardware 11 CPU Main Memory Input Devices Output Devices Secondary Memory

Software Applications vs Programs? What is the difference? Programming languages – High level vs low level – Compiled vs Interpreted 12

Low vs High Level languages Assembly Which high level languages do you know? 13

Compiled languages 14

Interpreted Languages 15

The Magic of Python 16 /harrypotter

References “Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science”, 2 nd ed., John M. Zelle 17