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Programming Languages, Software Engineering Curriculum

Topic 3 – Introduction to Programming

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Why do I need to know a programming language?

Because you will develop your software using a programming language.
A programming language is a language that both you and a computer will understand.
It’s a tool for you to express what you want a computer to do.
It’s a tool for you to write instructions of your computer programs.
Without knowledge of a programming language, you cannot develop any software.

I hear that there are many programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Swift, Ruby, Python, JavaScript, PHP, F#, Kotlin,  Clojure, Go, or Lisp.
How many programming languages should I know?

As many as possible. However, at this stage, you should learn about structure of a computer program and a procedure language (e.g. C or C++) first.

What can I do after finishing learning programming language?

You will be able to write a program to tell a computer
– to do a calculation, or
– to count for occurrence of a string, or
– to store and search for a string, or
– to sort a list of numbers, or
– to display an image.

What should I do now?

Please read this book, Stephen Prata (2011). C Primer Plus. Pearson, to learn programming using the C language.

Alternatively, you can read this book, Stephen Prata (2012). C++ Primer Plus. Pearson (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 9), to learn programming using the C++ language.

Alternatively, you can read these books, Eric Matthes (2023). Python Crash Course. No Starch Press,  Charles Severance (2013). Python for Informatics: Exploring Information (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 11), and John M. Zelle (2017). Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science. Franklin, Beedle & Associates book (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 9), to learn programming using the Python language.

Alternatively, you can read this book, Chris Pine (2013). Learn to Program: The Facets of Ruby Series. The Pragmatic Bookshelf (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 11), to learn programming using the Ruby language.

Alternatively, you can read these books, Alan A. A. Donovan and Brian W. Kernighan (2015). The Go Programming Language. Addison-Wesley Professional, and Nathan Youngman and Roger Peppe (2018). Get Programming with Go. Manning Publications, to learn programming using the Go language.

After that if you would like to study system programming in depth then please read this book, Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie (2016). The C Programming Language. Prentice Hall, or this book, Michael Kerrisk (2018). The Linux Programming Interface. No Starch Press.

After that if you would like to get vocabularies and in-depth knowledge about programming, especially the relationship between mathematics and programming, and ideas of functional programming and logic programming then please read this book, Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman (1996). Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. The MIT Press, or these Course Notes.

Terminology Review:

  • Computer Programs.
  • Compilers.
  • Just-In-Time Compilers.
  • Interpreters.
  • Structured Programming.
  • Procedural Programming.
  • Object-Oriented Programming.
  • Functional Programming.
  • Declarative Programming.
  • Logic Programming.
  • Primitive Types: int, float, double, string, date/time, null.
  • Basic Constructs: variables & assignments, pointers, declarations, functions, macro.
  • Control Flow: if/else, while, switch, for, break, continue, recursion, exception, parallelism, signal, jump.
  • User-defined Types: struct, class, type.
  • Data Structures: Arrays, Lists, Linked Lists.
  • Object-Oriented Programming: abstraction, encapsulation, class-based inheritance, prototype-based inheritance, polymorphism.
  • Functional Programming: first-class and higher-order functions, no side effects, recursion.
  • Modularity: files, packages, namespaces, libraries, modules.
  • Concurrency: processes, threads, locks, channels, timers, callbacks, events, promises, event loop.
  • Type system: static type, dynamic type.
  • Error handling: try/catch.
  • Metaprogramming: reflection, template programming, DSL.
    • Clojure.

    After finishing learning about programming languages please click Topic 4 – Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithms to continue.