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

Writing code with efficiency in mind

When we talk about efficient code, we can mean several different things. Let's look at some of the things people might mean when they talk about efficient code.

Removing redundant or unnecessary code

You should always make sure that you remove redundant code. Redundant code is code that does not affect the output of the application, but will be executed.

Look at the following code:

number = 10
for i  = 1 to 1000
  number = number + i
end_for
number = 20
print number

Here, we created a variable, number, and set it to 10.

Then, we have a for loop. This loop will iterate 999 times. The first time this happens, the i variable will have a value of 1; the second time, it will be 2, and so on until it reaches 1000. Then, we will exit the loop.

Each time we're inside the loop, we will take whatever value the variable number currently has, add the current value of i to it, and store the result in the number...