• Learn how to program the computer
• Be a free-opensource community member

• Learn some basic programming concepts and constructs: Variables, If, For and Functions
• Learn what a flowchart is
• How to make a flowchart for writing programs

What is a variable?
x, university, car

Assignment NOT equality
x=5.2, university="Queen's"

Drill (1m)

Think of other examples of variables? z, first-name, school, person 

x=3+7 ?

count=4 
x=2+count ? 

x=2
y=x+8 ? 

x=x+3 ? 

What makes computers look intelligent?

Simple check

age=20
IF (age < 18)
   Print "Sorry, you are still young"

More intelligence

age=20

IF(age < 18)
    Print "Sorry, you are still young"
ELSE
    Print "You can drive a car"

Execute commands many times

'What does the next statement do?'

FOR i=1  TO   i=100   DO
    Print "I want to drive a car"

What is a function?
A subprogram (sub-code). Think of it as a small program you want it to solves you small problems.

output value = FUNCTION( input parameters)

How does it work?

• call it and give it "orders"
• it processes, cooks, crunches... (in a bit of time)
• Gives you the stuff back

 height= sin(30)
 height= height * 10
 Print "The height of the building is "  height

What are advantages of functions?

• Some functions are ready for you to use (sin, cos, time, print)
• Make large programs easier ( user defined functions )
• Team work (several programmers work on different parts of a project)
• debugging (easier to debug and fix)

Essential components of a basic flowchart (1m)

START	END	ENTER	PRINT	PROCESS	DECISION
File:Termination.PNG	File:Termination.PNG

Example of a flowchart (3m)

Advantages of flowcharting? (2m)

• You do not need a programming language to "write down" a program. You visually write a program.
• You can add details any time later.
• Visually, understand the problem better. You can spot missing points.
• Translate the flowchart into a program (think of pseudo-code).
• Translate the flowchart into any programming language (abstraction).

Example of a flowchart (3m)

Flowchart exercise (10m) Make a simple flowchart to/for

1. Write a flowchart of buying a bottle of water from a vending machine?
2. Write a flow chart of a program to compute a factorial of a number?
3. Write the program in a programming language, e.g. Python?

• With the goal of promoting free opensource community, what would you (currently) do to learn a new programming language?

• • Use a free opensource OS, Linux (recommended)
  • Use free Book/Tutorials. Ex:Wikibooks project),
  • Use a free opensource compiler Ex: www.python.org
  • Use a free opensource editor. Ex: Emacs, Eclipse, etc
  • Subscribe to a programming language Newsgroup/Language-specific Mailing list. Ex: comp.lang.python
  • Participate in a community project. Ex: coding. Others (documentation, report bugs, donate,promote).
  • Participate in a programming contest (if you have previous programming experience) Ex: Google summer code contest.Get hired?

(you can submit answers to the following questions electronically on the course website with the case-sensitive password:I.lovE.PyThOn)

• What did you like to know more about that was covered today?
• What is it that you felt was not clear today? be specific and give examples where possible?
• Is there something that you wish be covered?
• From a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the lab session?
• Comments: any positive criticism that would help make future lab sessions better?

• Course Slides
• Examples, past projects
• Assignments/Projects
• Useful links:
  • http://programming-crash-course.com/
  • Python for Absolute Beginners