Introduction to Programming

What is a Computer?
• A computer is an electronic device capable of
performing commands
• Commands: The basic commands that a computer
performs are input (get data), output (display result),
storage, and performance of arithmetic and logical
operations

Instructions
A Computer
Results
System
Data
Introduction
• Without software, the computer is useless
• Software developed with programming languages
• C++ is a programming language
• C++ suited for a wide variety of programming tasks
• Before programming, it is useful to understand
terminology and computer components

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The Language of a Computer
• When you press A on your keyboard, the computer
displays A on the screen. But what is actually stored
inside the computer’s main memory? What is the
language of the computer? How does it store
whatever you type on the keyboard?

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The Language of a Computer
• Electrical signals are used inside the computer to
process information. There are two types of
electrical signals: analog and digital.
• Analog signals: are continuous wave forms used to
represent such things as sound. Audio tapes, for
example, store data in analog signals.
• Digital signals: represent information with a sequence of
0s and 1s. A 0 represents a low voltage, and a 1
represents a high voltage

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The Language of a Computer
• Digital signals: sequences of 0s and 1s
• Machine language: language of a computer
• Binary digit (bit):
• The digit is called binary digit or bit 0 or 1
• Binary code:
• A sequence of 0s and 1s
• Byte:
• A sequence of eight bits is called a byte

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The Language of a Computer (cont’d.)

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The Language of a Computer
(cont'd.)
• ASCII (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) The most commonly used encoding
scheme on personal computers is the seven-bit
American Standard Code for Information
Interchange (ASCII).
• Consists of 128 characters: 0-127
• A is encoded as the binary number 1000001 (66th
character in ASCII)
• 3 is encoded as 0110011

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The Language of a Computer
(cont'd.)
• Inside the computer, every character is represented
as a sequence of eight-bits, that is, as a byte.
ASCII is a seven-bit code. Therefore, to represent
each ASCII character inside the computer, you must
convert the seven-bit binary representation of an
ASCII character to an eight-bit binary representation.
• This is accomplished by adding 0 to the left of the seven-
bit ASCII encoding of a character.
• Example: the character A is represented as 01000001,
and the character 3 is represented as 00110011 by
adding 0 to the left.
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The Evolution of Programming
Languages
• Early computers were programmed in machine
language
• To calculate wages = rates * hours in
machine language:
100100 010001 //Load
100110 010010 //Multiply
100010 010011 //Store

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The Evolution of Programming
Languages (cont'd.)
• Assembly language instructions are mnemonic
• Assembler: translates a program written in assembly
language into machine language

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The Evolution of Programming
Languages (cont'd.)
• Using assembly language instructions, wages =
rates • hours can be written as:

LOAD rate
MULT hour
STOR wages

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The Evolution of Programming
Languages (cont'd.)

• The next step toward making programming more

easier (high-level languages)

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Programming Languages
• Classification of programming languages:
1. Machine language (0s and 1s)
2. Low-level languages (Assembly)
3. High-level languages (natural languages
such as English, French, German, and
Spanish. Basic, FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, C,
C++, C#, Java)
1. Machine level languages
• A computer understands only sequence of bits or 1’s
and 0’s (the smallest piece of information)

• A computer program can be written using machine

languages (01001101010010010….)
• Very fast execution
• Very difficult to write and debug
• Machine specific (different codes on different
machines)
2. Low level languages
• English encrypted words instead of codes (1’s and
0’s)
• More understandable (for humans)
• Example: Assembly language
• Requires: “Translation” from Assembly code to
Machine code

Assembly Code Machine Code

compare: 1001010101001101
cmpl #oxa,n 1110010110010100
cgt Assembler 0101010111010010
end_of_loop 0110100110111011
acddl #0x1,n 1101100101010101
end_of_loop:
3. High level languages
• Mostly machine independent
• Close to natural language (English like language
keywords)
• Easy to write and understand programs
• Easy to debug and maintain code
• Requires compilers to translate to machine code
• Slower than low-level languages
3. High level languages examples
• Some Popular High-Level languages
• COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language)
• FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation)
• BASIC (Beginner All-purpose Symbolic Instructional Code)
• Pascal (named for Blaise Pascal)
• Ada (named for Ada Lovelace)
• C (whose developer designed B first)
• Visual Basic (Basic-like visual language by Microsoft)
• C++ (an object-oriented language, based on C)
• Java
High-Level Language C++
• The instruction written in C++ is much easier to
understand and is self-explanatory.
• The computer cannot directly execute instructions
written in a high-level language. To run on a computer,
these C++ instructions first need to be translated into
machine language.
• A program called a compiler translates instructions
written in high level languages into machine code.
• Compiler: A program that translates instructions written
in a high-level language into the machine language
Processing a C++ Program
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout << "My first C++ program." << endl;
return 0;
}

Sample Run (OUTPUT):

My first C++ program.

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Terminology
• Source Code: A program written in high-level language.
• Object program: The machine language version of the
high-level language program.
• Compiling/Compiler: The action of turning the source
code into a format the computer can use (object code).
• Linking: Combines object program with other programs
(Libraries) provided by the SDK to create executable code
• Executable: The result of compiling and linking a source
program; the “.exe” file that the computer can run
• Loader: A program that loads an executable program into
main memory.
• The last step is to execute the program
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Processing a C++ Program
(cont'd.)

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Another C++ Example
Consider the following C++ program:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout<<"My first C++ program."<< endl;
cout<<"The sum of 2 and 3 ="<< 5 << endl;
cout<<"7 + 8=“ << 7 + 8 <<endl;
return 0;
}
OUTPUT: (When you compile and execute this program, the following
three lines are displayed on the screen.)
My first C++ program.
The sum of 2 and 3 = 5
7+8= 15
 C++ example
• #include <iostream> preprocessor directives
• main: every c++ program consist of main function
• Anything in double quotes is a string. For example, "My first
C++ program." and "7+8=" are strings.
• 7+8 is an arithmetic expression (without quotes)
• endl: causes the insertion point to move to the beginning of
the next line
• cout<<: to print statements to the console.
• using namespace std; allows you to use cout and endl
without the prefix std::
• The last statement, that is, return 0; returns the value 0 to
the operating system when the program terminates.
Problem Solving Steps – Programming Process
Programming is a process of problem
solving
1. Understand the problem
2. Plan the logic
3. Code the program
4. Test the program
5. Deploy the program into production
1. Understanding the Problem
• Problems are often described in natural language
like English.

• Users may not be able to specify needs well, and

the needs may changing frequently

• Identify the requirements

1. Inputs or given data-items
2. Required output(s) or desired results
3. Indirect inputs (may not be given directly, you
have to calculate or assume)
1. Understanding the Problem
• Example: Calculate the area of a circle
having the radius of 3 cm
• Inputs:
• Radius=3
• Output:
• Area
• Indirect Inputs:
• Pi=3.14

• Area = 3.14 * (3*3) = 28.27

2. Plan the Logic
• Identify/Outline small steps in sequence, to
achieve the goal (or desired results)

• Tools such as flowcharts and pseudocode can

be used:
1. Flowchart: a pictorial representation of the logic
steps
2. Pseudocode: English-like representation of the logic

• Walk through the logic before coding

3. Code the Program
• Code the program:
• Select the programming language
• Write the program instructions in the selected
programming language
• Use the compiler software to translate the
program into machine understandable code or
executable file
• Syntax errors (Error in program instructions) are
identified by the compiler during compilation
and can be corrected.
4. Test the Program
• Testing the program
• Execute it with sample data and check the
results

• Identify logic errors if any (undesired results

or output) and correct them

• Choose test data carefully to exercise all

branches of the logic (Important)
5. Deploy the Program
• Putting the program into production
• Do this after testing is complete and all known
errors have been corrected
Introduction to Pseudocode
• One of the popular representation based on
natural language

• Widely used
• Easy to read and write
• Allow the programmer to concentrate on the
logic of the problem

• Structured in English language (Syntax/grammar)

What is Pseudocode (continued...)
• English like statements
• Each instruction is written on a separate line
• Keywords and indentation are used to signify
particular control structures.
• Written from top to bottom, with only one entry
and one exit
• Groups of statements may be formed into
modules
What is Pseudocode (continued...)
Example: Calculate the area of a circle having
the radius of 3 cm
Pseudocode:
• Get radius of a circle
• Calculate Area
• Display Area
 Flowcharts
• “A graphic representation of a sequence of operations to
represent a computer program”

• Flowcharts show the sequence of instructions in a single

program or subroutine.
 A Flowchart
• A Flowchart
• Shows logic of an algorithm or problem
• Shows individual steps and their interconnections
• E.g., control flow from one action to the next
A Flowchart
START

Input
Radius (r)

Calculate Area =
3.14 * r * r

Display
Area

END
 Flowchart Symbols
Name Symbol Description

Oval Beginning or End of the Program

Parallelogram  Input / Output Operations

Rectangle Processing for example, Addition,

Multiplication, Division, etc.

Denotes a Decision (or branching)

Diamond for example IF-Then-Else

Denotes the Direction of logic

Arrow flow
Relational / Logical Operators

Relational Operators
Operator Description
> Greater than
< Less than
= Equal to
 Greater than or equal to
 Less than or equal to
 Not equal to
QUIZ