Unit 0: Getting Started With Programming

We begin by introducing you to four students who, like you, are going to learn programming with no background whatsoever.

You will be taking the course with these students as your classmates, your guide posts, and your friends. They are:

• Emma. Emma is a journalism major who understands that to excel in digital media, she'll need to gain reasonable expertize in programming. She is keen to forge a new career path that combines media, programming and her varied interests. She is passionate about sharks, and hopes to do a shark dive in the near future.
• Patrick. Patrick is an English graduate excited by the prospect of using computer science skills to analyze the medieval texts he has studied in great detail. Patrick loves books, cats, jazz sax and guitar, and writing short stories, thought not necessarily all at once.
• Linda. Linda is a dance major seeking to explore the use of technology at the cutting edge of modern dance. She dares to change the world of dance by combining her already considerable dance expertise with computer aided techniques for live interaction with media during dance performances. Always looking to challenge herself, she is also learning to cook along with learning programming.
• Steven. Steven just loves to travel (he'll tell you about his most recent visit: Iceland) and anticipates visiting various corners of the globe as a public health expert once he has completed his public health degree. He expects to crunch data every day on the job, and programming will help him analyze data more effectively and efficiently.

Note: for each module we have [in square brackets] indicated the average number of hours taken by previous students.

Module 0: Your first program, the edit-compile-test process, GUI vs. command-line, how to succeed [2 hours]

Module 1: Parts of a program [2]

Module 2: More about syntax [2]

Why is the course designed this way?

What to remember when submitting work

Module 3: Methods: a first look [2]

Module 4: Loops: the for-loop [3]

Assignment 1 [5]

Module 5: Integers [4]

Module 6: Chars, strings, and some useful tools [3]

Module 7: Real numbers [3]

Module 8: Applications [3]

Assignment 2 [5]

Review [2]

Useful tools (if needed)