CSC 110 A 1 CSC 110 Introduction to Python [Reading: chapter 1]

CSC 110 A 2 What to expect in this class  Outcome: how to program in Python (algorithms, semantics/syntax, using objects, python modules, …)  Class organization:  Lectures, practice with sample code, homework assignments, tests and quizzes  class web site seattlecentral.edu/~flepeint/pyclass

CSC 110 A 3 What is a computer? (1)  Programmer's viewpoint  CPU (central processing unit): the "brain" of the computer. It can perform simple tasks very fast (e.g. adding…)  Memory: where the microprocessor stores data (results of computations,…). Memory comes in many types (RAM, ROM, …)  Input/Output devices: e.g. keyboard, screen, … They allow the user to interact with the computer.  Our goal: Make the computer perform complex tasks for us.  How: Write programs.

CSC 110 A 4 What is a computer? (2) CPU Memory Network Welcome to Python!

CSC 110 A 5 Programming  Machine language  The CPU set of instructions: coded as a series of 0's and 1's  Fast  Machine dependent (two different CPU don't use the same machine language)  Time consuming to write programs  Instead, use a high level language  Closer to plain English. Programming is easier. (this doesn't mean easy!)  Machine independent  Can't be understood by the CPU. A translation program is required (compiler, interpreter, …)

CSC 110 A 6 Programming languages  Thousands of programming languages (many are just for research purposes)  Historically (with many omissions!)  FORTRAN (scientific) (50's)  COBOL (business) (60's)  PASCAL, BASIC, C (multi purposes) (70's)  C++ (OOP) (80's), Java (90’s)  Python (90’s, started by Guido Van Rossum, community-backed development process, the catchy name is a reference to Monty Python)

CSC 110 A 7 Why are we learning Python?  A modern language  object oriented  dynamic semantics  built-in data structures  extensive libraries  available on all major platforms  A good language to learn programming

CSC 110 A 8 The present Python  Python 3.3 (2012)  Python 3: cleaned up version of Python 2  not compatible with Python 2  Software: many free products for all platforms (Unix, Mac, Windows…)  available at python.org  comes with a development environment (IDLE)  other IDE's available (e.g. PyDev in Eclipse)

CSC 110 A 9 Resources  Text: “Python Programming" by J. Zelle  x.html  Another text: “How to think like a computer scientist”  Spy.pdf  Huge amount of resources on the web  check python.org