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

Iteration with the for loop

The first type of iteration we will look at is the for loop. This is a kind of loop when we, in one way or the other, know how many times we want to repeat something. This can be a fixed number of times, such as iterating over a list using the days of the week. We know it is always 7. It can also be that we have values in an array. We might not know precisely how many items there are in the array at any given time; however, as we will see, there are ways to ask the array how many objects it is currently holding.

When using a for loop, we will work with a variable that keeps track of how many times we have iterated. We can decide what value this variable shall start on. It is this variable that helps us to know when to stop iterating. Let's look at an example:

for i = 0 to 10
    …
end_for

Here, we create (or declare, as a programmer would say) a variable called i. The name, i, is frequently used as the name for this...