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 gone back in history and explored the development of computers. The history of computers is a vast topic, but we touched on some important events that have made computers the fantastic machines that we know today.

For a computer to be useful, it requires programs, and to be able to write programs, we need programming languages. We learned that the development of programming was closely related to the development of computers, even if Lady Ada Lovelace managed to write what was considered to be the first computer program about 100 years before the first computer was built.

With the history of computers covered, we then turned our attention to what a computer program is and how the computer can use the instructions given in the program to accomplish the intentions of the programmer. To do that, we examined the smallest parts of data a computer can handle, the bits, which are the zeros and ones of the binary representation of numbers. We learned...