COMSW 1003-1 Introduction to Computer Programming in C
Lecture 1
Spring 2011 Instructor: Michele Merler
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~mmerler/comsw1003-1.html
Course Information - Goals
A general introduction to computer science concepts, algorithmic problem solving capabilities, and programming skills in C
University bulletin
Learn how to program, in C Understand basic Computer Science problems
Learn about basic data structures Start to think as a computer scientist
Use all of the above to solve real world problems
Course Information - Instructor
Michele Merler
Email:
[email protected] or
[email protected] Office : 624 CEPSR Office Hours: Friday 12pm-2pm
4th year PhD Student in CS Department Research Interests:
Image & Video Processing Multimedia Computer Vision
Course Information- TA
TDB
Email: [email protected] Office : TA room Office Hours: TDB
Course Information- Courseworks
We will be using Courseworks (https://courseworks.columbia.edu/) for:
Message board for discussions Submit Homeworks
Grades
Check out the board before you send an email to the instructor or the TA, the answer you are looking for could already be there!
Course Information Requirements and Books
Requirements Basic computer skills CUNIX account
Textbooks
The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~mmerler/coms1003-1/C Programming Language.rar
Practical C Programming (3rd Edition) by Steve Oualline
Course Information - Grading
5 Homeworks (10%, 10%, 10% , 10% , 10%) Midterm Exam (20%)
Final Exam (30%)
10% 30% 10%
HW1 HW2
10% 10% 20% 10%
HW3
HW4
HW5
MIDTERM
FINAL
Course Information Academic Honesty
Its quite simple:
Do not copy from others Do not let others copy from you
Do your homework individually Please read through the departments policies on academic honesty http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty/
Course Information - Syllabus
Go to class webpage http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~mmerler/coms1003-1_files/Syllabus.html
What is Computer Science?
Computer science (sometimes abbreviated CS) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems Wikipedia
"Computer science and engineering is the systematic study of algorithmic processes-their theory, analysis, design, efficiency, implementation, and application-that describe and transform information Comer, D. E.; Gries, D., Mulder, M. C., Tucker, A., Turner, A. J., and Young, P. R. (Jan. 1989). "Computing as a discipline. Communications of the ACM 32 (1): 9.
"Computer science is the study of information structures" Wegner, P. (October 1315, 1976). "Research paradigms in computer science". Proceedings of the 2nd international Conference on Software Engineering. San Francisco, California, United States "Computer Science is the study of all aspects of computer systems, from the theoretical foundations to the very practical aspects of managing large software projects. Massey University
What is Computer Science?
Computer Science is the discipline that studies how to make computers perform tasks that are too complex or boring for humans
Computer Science Areas
Computational science
Theoretical computer science
Algorithms and data structures Theory of computation
Computer architecture Artificial Intelligence
Software Engineering
Why programming?
We need a way to tell computers what to do
It would be nice to communicate with computers in English, but
English can be ambiguous! Computers only understand binary!
Solution: programming languages
What is a Program?
A Program is a sequence of instructions and computations Well be designing programs in this course.
These programs will be based on algorithms
An Algorithm is a step-by-step problemsolving procedure
Example
Add 3 large numbers
453 + 782 + 17,892
Hard to do all at once
Solution: divide and impera! (453 + 782) + 17,892 = 1,235 + 17,892 = 19,127
Algorithms help us divide and organize complex problems into sub-problems which are easier to solve (bottom-up approach)
Programming
Back in the day, programmers wrote in Assembly, a language where each
word stands for a single instruction
But then they had to hand translate each instruction into binary!!!
Solution: the assembler, a computer program to do the translation
From then, programmers could worry only about writing assembly code Then they started to devise higher level languages (FORTRAN, COBOL,
PASCAL, C, C++, JAVA, Perl, Python, etc.), which get translated into Assembly
by compilers (we will use GCC, a C compiler for Unix) High level language Assembly Compiler Assembler Machine Instructions
What is C?
Programming language developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 at AT&T Bell labs
Why is it named C? Well the B programming language already existed !
C is still the most used programming language for Operating Systems Popular because: Flexible C compiler was widely available
Basis for other popular programming languages: C++, C#
What is C?
Among the high level programming languages, C is one with the lowest level of abstraction Close to English, but more precise! Easy to compile into Assembly => Fast Rich set of standard function = we dont have to implement everything from scratch!
Translated before run time Translated at run time
Why C? Interesting Facts
Approximation of popularity of language using Yahoo API http://www.langpop.com/
Slide credit: Priyank Singh
Why C? Interesting Facts
Available language code available using Google code search http://www.langpop.com/
Slide credit: Priyank Singh
Why C? Interesting Facts
Jobs posting on craiglist.org, from website http://www.langpop.com/
Slide credit: Priyank Singh
C/C++ Industry
Open Source Graphics and Gaming
Embedded
Slide credit: Priyank Singh
Example of C program
Hello world!
Announcements
Homework 0 is out! Due at the beginning of next class
Bring your laptop to class
