Book Image

Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners

By : Joakim Wassberg
4 (1)
Book Image

Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners

4 (1)
By: Joakim Wassberg

Overview of this book

Learning how to code has many advantages, and gaining the right programming skills can have a massive impact on what you can do with your current skill set and the way you advance in your career. This book will be your guide to learning computer programming easily, helping you overcome the difficulties in understanding the major constructs in any mainstream programming language. Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners starts by taking you through the building blocks of any programming language with thorough explanations and relevant examples in pseudocode. You'll understand the relationship between computer programs and programming languages and how code is executed on the computer. The book then focuses on the different types of applications that you can create with your programming knowledge. You'll delve into programming constructs, learning all about statements, operators, variables, and data types. As you advance, you'll see how to control the flow of your programs using control structures and reuse your code using functions. Finally, you'll explore best practices that will help you write code like a pro. By the end of this book, you'll be prepared to learn any programming language and take control of your career by adding coding to your skill set.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction to Computer Programs and Computer Programming
6
Section 2: Constructs of a Programming Language
7
Chapter 5: Sequence – The Basic Building Block of a Computer Program
14
Section 3: Best Practices for Writing High-Quality Code
Appendix B: Dictionary
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W

Summary

In this chapter, we have seen that functions are a powerful tool we can use to organize and structure our code to make it more readable and reusable.

We saw how functions have a name, and that name can be used to call them. Calling a function makes the code inside it to execute. This is something we can do over and over again as often as we need to.

Sometimes, we want functions to produce a value as a result of its operations. In those cases, we can let the function return something. We can then use that value in the location where we called the function.

Then, we learned that we can also pass data into a function. This can be done using function arguments. The function receives these arguments in local variables called parameters.

With the introduction of functions, we also have the concepts of variables being either global or local. We saw that global variables can be accessed from any location within the program and local variables can only be used within the...