Book Image

Applied Computational Thinking with Python

By : Sofía De Jesús, Dayrene Martinez
Book Image

Applied Computational Thinking with Python

By: Sofía De Jesús, Dayrene Martinez

Overview of this book

Computational thinking helps you to develop logical processing and algorithmic thinking while solving real-world problems across a wide range of domains. It's an essential skill that you should possess to keep ahead of the curve in this modern era of information technology. Developers can apply their knowledge of computational thinking to solve problems in multiple areas, including economics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence. This book begins by helping you get to grips with decomposition, pattern recognition, pattern generalization and abstraction, and algorithm design, along with teaching you how to apply these elements practically while designing solutions for challenging problems. You’ll then learn about various techniques involved in problem analysis, logical reasoning, algorithm design, clusters and classification, data analysis, and modeling, and understand how computational thinking elements can be used together with these aspects to design solutions. Toward the end, you will discover how to identify pitfalls in the solution design process and how to choose the right functionalities to create the best possible algorithmic solutions. By the end of this algorithm book, you will have gained the confidence to successfully apply computational thinking techniques to software development.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction to Computational Thinking
9
Section 2:Applying Python and Computational Thinking
14
Section 3:Data Processing, Analysis, and Applications Using Computational Thinking and Python
20
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Designing algorithms

When designing algorithms, order matters. There are hierarchies that matter when we are working with programming languages. That includes when we are working with Python. Think about this as the order of operations in mathematics. If you recall, we use the mnemonic PEMDAS to remember the order of operations in mathematics. PEMDAS stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, and Addition/Subtraction.

I write Multiplication/Division together like this because multiplication and division hold the same weight. That is, multiplication does not necessarily need to happen before division. If I have a division first and then a multiplication from left to right, then the division happens first. The same is true for addition and subtraction. Neither has more weight than the other, so we perform them in order of appearance from left to right.

Let's write a mathematical algorithm for a problem. We'll look at an algorithm in a food setting. And...