INTRODUCTION TO

PROGRAMMING
CONCEPTS
 What is a Computer?
 Components of a Computer
WEEK
 Hardware Concepts
1-2
 Digital Data Representation
 Bits and Bytes
 Digital Electronics
 Software Concepts
 Software Basics
 The Evolution of Programming Languages
  an electronic device capable of performing complex
computations in a short time

 a fast electronic calculating machine that accepts

input information, processes it according to a list of
internally stored instructions called a program, and
produces the resultant output information
What is a
Computer?  a program is a set of instructions for a computer,
telling it what to do or how to behave

 programming is the craft of implementing one or

more interrelated abstract algorithms using a
particular programming language to produce a
concrete computer program
  Hardware
 the physical equipment of a computer
system, including the monitor, keyboard,
central processing unit, and storage
Components devices
of a
Computer  Software
 refers to one or more computer
programs and data held in the storage of
a computer for some purpose
  Data representation: conversion of images,
letters and sounds into electrical signals
Hardware
Concepts
 Digital electronics: manipulation of “on” and
“off” signals to perform complex tasks
  Signals: variations in physical
phenomena

Hardware
 Analog: any continuous signal
Concepts

 Digital: representation of a sequence

of distinct values
  The “0” and “1” are also known as bits
or binary digits

Digital Data  A sequence of “0” and “1” could be

Representation written as 10011, this sequence may
have significant value, for instance it
may pertain to a certain character or
number
 How can a computer represent numbers using
bits?
 Numeric data like your age, salary, electricity
bill are easily understood by humans. Then,
how is it possible for a computer to show a
Digital Data number using only binary digits?
Representation
 The computer uses the binary number
system which uses only two digits: 0 and 1
 A series of 0’s and 1’s results in a particular
number much in the same way we use the
decimal number system
  This table shows how the binary system
works

Decimal (Base 10) Binary (Base 2)

0 0000
1 0001
Digital Data 2 0010
Representation 3 0011
4 0100
5 0101
6 0110
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001
  How come 5 become 0101 when converted
to binary?
 Notice that there are 4 digits, namely, 0 , 1 , 0
and 1
 The positions of the 0’s and 1’s hold a significant
values

Digital Data
Representation
  If the box contains 0, the value is turned
“off”
 If the box contains 1, the value of that
box is turned “on” and will be added to
the value of the number

Digital Data
Representation
 How then can a computer represent words
and letters using bits?
 Bits can also be used to represent
character data synonymous to using
Morse code

Digital Data
 In this case, computers makes use of 0
Representation and 1 as a replacement to dashes and dots
Example: ME has a corresponding binary
value
  ASCII (American Standard Code for
Information Interchange)
 requires only seven bits for each
character
 EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded
Decimal Interchange Code)
Digital Data  an alternative 8-bit code used by older
Representation IBM mainframe computers
 UNICODE
 uses 8, 16, or 32 bits providing codes for
65,000 characters (represent the
alphabets of multiple languages) and
becoming popular
  Extended ASCII Code
 makes use of a series of 0’s and 1’s to represent
256 characters

Digital Data
Representation
  BIT
 an abbreviation of binary digit
 other abbreviation for bit is the
lowercase “b”
Bits and
Bytes
 BYTE
 a collection of bits (8 to be exact)
 usually abbreviated as an uppercase “B”
 PREFIX ABBREVIATION VALUE

Kilo K 210
Bits and
Mega M 220
Bytes Giga G 230
Tera T 240
 How are bits stored and transferred from one
point to another?

 Bits take the form of electrical pulses

Digital traveling over the circuits
Electronics
 All circuits, chips, and mechanical
components forming a computer are
designed to work with bits
  Computer Diagram

Processor
or CPU

Digital Input
Computer
Output
Devices Devices
Electronics
Memory
  Input devices are machines that generate
input for the computer, such as keyboard and
mouse

 Processor or CPU (Central Processing Unit) is

the central electronic chip that controls the
processes in the computer. It determines the
Digital processing power of the computer
Electronics
 Output devices are machines that display
information from the computer, such as
monitor, speaker, and printer

 Memory is the part of the computer that

stores applications, documents, and systems
operating information
 What is a software?

 computer instructions or data

Software  anything that can be stored electronically

Concepts
 computer programs, modules (support and
data) working together providing computers
with instructions and data for certain task
(e.g. word processing, internet browsing)
  Computer program (or “program”)
 an organized list of instructions that, when
executed, causes the computer to behave in a
predetermined manner

 Support module
Software  an auxiliary set of instructions used in conjunction
Basics with the main software program

 Data module
 contains data (not supplied by the user) necessary
for the execution of certain task
Software
Basics
 Data vs. Software

 Then, the term “software” is always

associated to all non-hardware components
of a computer
Software
Basics
 Modern definitions made it clear that all
documents, spreadsheets and even
downloaded materials from the net are now
classified as data
  Technically, the compiler creates object code, which is
the machine language representation of the source
code, and the linker creates the executable code
 The linker combines program object code, object code
from library routines and any other required system
code into one addressable machine language file
Software
Basics
 Application Software vs. System Software

 Application software are computer programs that are

used to accomplish specific or specialized tasks for
Software computer users such as creating and editing
Basics documents (word processing), making graphic
presentations, or listening to MP3 music

 System software helps the computer carry out its

basic operating functions
 computer user instructs
the application program
to print a document
Application
Computer User Software

Software
(Microsoft Word)

Basics
application software

system software controls makes a request to the

the printer as the system software to print

document is printed the document

System Software
Hardware (Operating System,
(Computer
, Printer) Device Drivers)
 First Generation: Machine Languages – use a binary code
(strings of 1s and 0s) that can be understood by the computer
and executed directly without any need for translation

 Late 1940s to early 1950s

 Uses binary code (zeroes & ones)
Evolution of  Very difficult to learn and use
Programming
Languages  Machine-dependent
 Second Generation: Assembly Languages – use mnemonics
(very short words) for commands

 Early to mid-1950s
 Assembly language
Evolution of
Programming  Slight improvement over machine
Languages language, but still difficult to learn and use
 Needs to be converted to machine
language by an assembler
 Machine-dependent
 Together with 1GL, are considered as
low-level languages
 Third Generation: High-Level Languages – use data
structures and control structures that are abstractions of
programming concepts

 Began during mid-to-late 1950s

 High-level programming languages
Evolution of
 Closer to level of human languages
Programming
Languages  High-level data structures and control
structures
 Machine-independent or portable
 Needs to be compiled into object code
 FORTRAN, Algol, BASIC, Pascal, C
 Fourth Generation: Declarative Languages – also called
“non-procedural specification languages”; a programmer
who writes 4GL programs concentrates on what needs to
be done (result/output) rather than how to do it
(steps/process)

 Brought about by the “programming crisis” of

the early 1970s
Evolution of
Programming  Declarative or non-procedural
Languages specification languages
 English-like
 “What” oriented, rather than “how” oriented
 Standard ML, Lisp, Haskel, SQL, Oracle Designer
& Developer, VB
 Fifth Generation: AI – problem-solving based on
constraints or rules that have been declared in the program

 From 1990s onwards

 Outgrowth of artificial intelligence (AI) research
 Constraint/rule-based programming, rather than
Evolution of algorithm-based problem-solving
Programming  Focus is on making the program solve the problem
Languages for you, rather than specifying the actual problem-
solving steps
 Prolog, OPS5, and Mercury