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Course contents

This course is intended as a first introduction to programming computers using the C++ programming language. It is not assumed that the student has done any programming before hence this course is not comprehensive and does not cover all of C++. In particular it does not cover any of the object-oriented features of C++, these are introduced in the following course (Introduction to Computing II). Because this is a first programming course emphasis is placed on the design of programs in a language-independent fashion. A brief introduction to computers is also given.

The lessons of the course may be split into groups as follows:

1. About the computer and computer systems.
   • Lesson 1 - The Computer. Covers the Central processor, memory, information representation and the operation cycle of the computer.
   • Lesson 2 - Programming Languages. Covers the various levels of Programming Languages.
   • Lesson 3 - Operating Systems. Covers the purpose of Operating systems and the major types.
   • Lesson 4 - Preparing a Computer Program. Covers the steps that are carried out in going from a problem specification to having a well-tested and reliable program to solve the problem.
2. About the design of programs.
   • Lesson 5 - Algorithms. The basic constructs used in designing programs. Sequence, selection and repetition.
   • Lesson 9 - Introduction to Structured Design. Top-down design of algorithms using sequence and selection only.
   • Lesson 15 - Further Structured Design. Top-down design of algorithms using repetition.
   • Lesson 20 - Top-down design using Functions. An introduction to problem-solving by splitting the problem into sub-problems whose solutions are implemented as functions.
3. About C++
   • Lesson 6 - A simple C++ program. Looks at a simple C++ program and identifies features. Covers simple ideas about variables and their declaration and input and output.
   • Lesson 7 - The Assignment statement. How values are assigned to variables.
   • Lesson 8 - Further Assignment Statements & Control of Output. More forms of assignment statement and simple formatting of output.
   • Lesson 10 - Conditions. How expressions that can be true or false are written in C++.
   • Lesson 11 - The if statement. How conditional execution of a statement is carried out.
   • Lesson 12 - The if-else statement. How a choice can be made between which of two statements to execute.
   • Lesson 13 - Nested if and if-else statements. How multi-choice decisions can be made.
   • Lesson 14 - The switch statement. An alternative way to implement multi-choice conditions.
   • Lesson 16 - The while statement. The basic way to carry out repetition.
   • Lesson 17 - The do-while statement. An alternative way to carry out repetition.
   • Lesson 18 - The for statement. Repetition a set number of times or as a control loop variable takes a set of values.
   • Lesson 19 - Streams and External Files. How to input and output data from and to external files.
   • Lesson 21 - An introduction to User-defined functions in C++. How to design your own functions.
   • Lesson 22 - Further User-defined functions. Returning information by parameters.
   • Lesson 23 - Arrays. How to work with large collections of indexed data.

Note that there is also a document `The Computer Exercises' which gives some help in using Windows and the Borland C++ compilers.