Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners

Learn essential computer science concepts and coding techniques to kick-start your programming career

Joakim Wassberg 지음

Packt(GCO Science) 2020년 07월 31일 출간

작품소개

책소개

Get to grips with the building blocks of programming languages and get started on your programming journey without a computer science degree

▶Book Description
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.

▶What You Will Learn
-Get to grips with basic programming language concepts such as variables, loops, selection and functions
-Understand what a program is and how the computer executes it
-Explore different programming languages and learn about the relationship between source code and executable code
-Solve problems using various paradigms such as procedural programming, object oriented programming, and functional programming
-Write high-quality code using several coding conventions and best practices
-Become well-versed with how to track and fix bugs in your programs

▶Key Features
-Understand the fundamentals of a computer program and apply the concepts you learn to different programming languages
-Gain the confidence to write your first computer program
-Explore tips, techniques, and best practices to start coding like a professional programmer

▶Who This Book Is For
This book is for beginners who have never programmed before and are looking to enter the world of programming. This includes anyone who is about to start studying programming and wants a head start, or simply wants to learn how to program on their own.

목차

▶TABLE of CONTENTS
▷Section 1: Introduction to Computer Programs and Computer Programming
-Chapter 1: Introduction to Computer Programs
-Chapter 2: Introduction to Programming Languages
-Chapter 3: Types of Applications
-Chapter 4: Software Projects and How We Organize Our Code

▷Section 2: Constructs of a Programming Language
-Chapter 5: Sequence ？ The Basic Building Block of a Computer Program
-Chapter 6: Working with Data ？ Variables
-Chapter 7: Program Control Structures
-Chapter 8: Understanding Functions
-Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong ？ Bugs and Exceptions
-Chapter 10: Programming Paradigms
-Chapter 11: Programming Tools and Methodologies

▷Section 3: Best Practices for Writing High-Quality Code
-Chapter 12: Code Quality

책 속으로

▶What this book covers
- Chapter 1, Introduction to Computer Programs, will give you an understanding of how computer programs work and how they interact with the computer hardware.

- Chapter 2, Introduction to Programming Languages, will teach you the evolution of programming languages, how they are related, introduce different types of languages, and give you a basic understanding of some fundamental programming concepts.

- Chapter 3, Types of Applications, explores how software comes in many forms and is created to solve a wide variety of problems. This chapter will introduce you to some of the essential application types and give you an understanding of how they work.

- Chapter 4, Software Projects and How We Organize Our Code, covers how, when writing programs that are beyond the most trivial level, we will need to organize our code into several code files. In this chapter, we look at how this can be done efficiently. We will also see how we can incorporate code written by others into our software projects.

- Chapter 5, Sequence . The Basic Building Block of a Computer Program, outlines how a computer program is, at the most fundamental level, built by putting statements in the correct sequence. We will see how this is done and how the computer will execute these statement sequences when our programs run.

- Chapter 6, Working with Data ？ Variables, explores how all computer programs will perform operations on data and modify it in some way. In this chapter, we will get to know the types of data we will work with when programming and what types of operations we can perform on them.

- Chapter 7, Program Control Structures, discusses how, when writing programs, we need to control the path that the execution takes through our code. To help us, we have different types of control structures that we can use to accomplish this.

- Chapter 8, Understanding Functions, explores functions as a fundamental concept in programming that let us package code into a reusable unit. In this chapter, we will see what functions are and how they can be used.

- Chapter 9, When Things Go Wrong ？ Bugs and Exceptions, reminds us that things will not always go according to plan. The code we have written might contain errors, or we might get data that we can't work with. In this chapter, we will see how we can deal with both situations.

- Chapter 10, Programming Paradigms, explores several ideas for how we should write and structure our code to be able to write programs as efficiently as possible. These are called paradigms, and we will look at the most prominent ones in this chapter.

- Chapter 11, Programming Tools and Methodologies, examines how programmers use different tools when developing software. We will look at some of them in this chapter, and also consider how teams of programmers can collaborate efficiently.

- Chapter 12, Code Quality, explores the many aspects of code quality. How can we write programs that run fast, or efficiently use the computer's resources? How can we write code that can easily be read and understood by other programmers that will need to modify our code? These are some of the things we will cover in this chapter.

- Appendix A ？ How to Translate the Pseudocode into Real Code, covers how to translate pseudo code into different programming languages.

- Appendix B - Dictionary has all the words which are unique or have a technical meaning and are used in the book.

출판사 서평

▶ Preface
Welcome to the beautiful world of programming. Programming is an art form in which you will use your imagination and creativity to create things. If you know how to program, your possibilities will be endless.

You can use it to create a fun game. Or maybe you want to automate things in your life. Maybe you want to become a professional programmer, and then you will use your skills to work in teams with others to create solutions that will be used by many people for a long time.

Having programming skills is also something that is needed in more and more professions. Your job title will not be that of a software developer. Instead, programming will be a tool that you can use.

I have been teaching programming for over 30 years. I have been teaching people of all ages, from beginners to senior professional developers. During this time, I have seen patterns, especially among beginners.

It took some time before I realized what made so many of my beginner students struggle with grasping programming. The problem was that they had to learn two things at once. First, they needed to understand the very concepts of programming. There are so many concepts and words, both new ones and some that they already know, but that have a slightly different meaning. Secondly, they will also need to learn a programming language. Taking in all this at the same time will become overwhelming for many people. For some, it will be so much that they give up programming for good.

The idea of this book is to focus on one of the two things you need to learn. This book will not focus on any language, but instead, teach you the concepts you need to know and understand to become a programmer. After you have read this book, you can learn any programming language you want, and when you do, you can focus on just learning the language, as the rest you will already know.

With this book, I also want to put things into context, so there will be a bit of history, and some parts will be rather technical. I believe that if you are going to learn something, you cannot just scratch the surface. You need to dive into it and see how things work.

And yes, I was that kid who disassembled my RC car to see how it worked.

Good luck with your endeavors to learn this fantastic art.

This book was written to the music of Talking Heads, and I suggest you listen to it as you read it.

작가정보

저자(글) Joakim Wassberg

Joakim Wassberg is a software developer who for the past 30 years has worked in a variety of areas, such as security in financial systems, secure payment systems, and as a specialist and architect of development methods.Throughout his career, he has always worked with education in programming, from introducing children in a playful way to take their first steps, to teaching senior developers a new technology or development methodology, and from company training to university courses. Since 2014, together with his wife, he has run the company Arthead, which works exclusively in education and educational development.