Computing

and
Programming

Notes for CSC 100 - The Beauty and Joy of Computing

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Reminders: What you should be doing!

Blown to Bits, Chapter 1:

● Should have completed “reading reflection”
● Over the next 9 days: participate in online discussion

Before class on Wednesday:

● Read “Introduction to Abstraction” (link on schedule)

Labs:
● Review solution for Lab 2 if you didn’t understand everything
○ Video solution walk-through in Canvas
○ Lab 3 builds on Lab 2, so make sure you understand Lab 2!
Question to Start the Day...
Context: Computation takes place as a sequence of steps
(can consider a 2 GHz computer to be taking 2 billion steps
per second).

Question: What can a computer do in a single step?

Or… Which of the following can be done in a step?

1. Store the number 123 in a variable
2. Compute the sum of a variable plus 5
3. Compute the square root of a number
4. Compute the GCD of two numbers
5. Add together two 1000-digit numbers
6. Find the highest test score in a class of 10 students
7. Draw Alonzo on the screen
8. Find a collection of bank transactions that add up to a target value
A Basic Computational Step
Super-simplified CPU (Central Processing Unit):

Things to know:
● Data transferred around on wires (dark black
arrows in diagram) - fixed number of wires
limits how big (# digits) a number can be
● “ALU” is “Arithmetic Logic Unit” - this actually
does the computations: two inputs, one
output

So in general:
A step is an operation on two values from a
limited range of numbers.

Can’t operate on big numbers or more than two Diagram from Wikimedia Commons
things in a single step.
How Fast Can People Compute One Step?

We are going to have a calculation race - how fast are you?

Make sure you have a sheet of paper and pencil/pen

On the following screen are three arithmetic problems

When I change slides, start working on these and solve

them as fast as you can - I'll time you!

Raise your hand when you have the answers.

The Problems

132831 942
+476884 x837

412856
-304158
The Answers

132831 942
+476884 x837
609715 788454

412856
-304158
108698
How Fast?
If t is the fastest time, then t/3 seconds per calculation (or 3/t
calculations per second)

Obviously, computers can do this faster, but...

In June 2017 the most powerful computer on earth

could do 93,015,000,000,000,000 calculations per
second (93.015 petaflops).

See http://www.top500.org/

Thinking about computations on this scale is incredibly different from

thinking about computations at a few calculations per minute.

This is why Computer Science has become so important!

Some Other Questions...

How accurate were you?

Were all the calculations the same difficulty?

● What makes some calculations harder than others? A fundamental
computer science question!

What about cost?

● How much would it cost to do 1 calculation per second non-stop for a year,
paying $10/hour?
 Exercise: You identify the steps
Problem: Find the largest value in this list of numbers
338 773 655 72 882 80 533 278 626 689
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Numbers in [brackets] are positions - use to refer to values (example: value [4])

What you’re allowed to do:

● Set aside storage to remember values or positions (these are variables)
● Access a value based on its position
● Do any operation with one or two values (arithmetic, store in a variable, …)
● Make decisions based on comparing two values
● Control your “program” (repeating operations, etc.)
To do:
1. Decide on a general strategy (algorithm)
2. Go around the room executing: each person to identify the next “step” to take
A few more words about “steps”
Steps are very simplistic and not very powerful
But… do a few billion every second, and you can make
some very complex, “smart-looking” behavior!
Note: While it works for computers, doing lots of stupid things at high speed is
not the “smart-looking” behavior that you should aspire to as a college student.

If we had to specify every single

step, programmers would not be
very productive.

Goal: Make programming easier!

How Programming Languages Help

How you want to describe an animation How the computer must do it

Find what images are behind Alonzo

Move Alonzo 10 spaces to the right For each row of the background
For each column of the background
Redraw the background pixel
Add 10 to Alonzo’s x coordinate
Snap! lets you do this For each row of Alonzo
For each column of Alonzo
instead of this
Draw the pixel of Alonzo
[ “High Level” vs “Low Level” ]

The goals of a good programming language:

a) is natural and understandable to people
b) can be efficiently (and unambiguously) turned into actual computer code
Different Languages, Different Styles
Basic structure of many languages is similar

Google Blockly lets you look at the same program in different languages:

Note: Don’t get the wrong idea -

some languages are very
different!

See https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/demos/code/index.html#p7cnbv
Some Quotes
These are by Alan Perlis (1922-1990): An early computer scientist and
first winner of the Turing Award in 1966.
“A programming language is low level when its programs require attention
to the irrelevant.”
“A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is
not worth knowing.”
“There will always be things we wish to say in our programs that in all
known languages can only be said poorly.”

And since programmers are never satisfied with the programming

language they are using, one more quote - from Bjarne Stroustrup
(inventor of C++):
“There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always
bitch about and those nobody uses.”
Some Quotes
These are by Alan Perlis (1922-1990): An early computer scientist and
first winner of the Turing Award in 1966.
“A programming Thelanguage is low level
“Turing Award” is the when its programs
top award given inrequire attention
the field of
to the irrelevant.”
Computer Science - sometimes referred to as the “Nobel
Prize
“A language that of Computer
doesn't affect theScience.”
way you think about programming, is
not worth knowing.”
Named after Alan Turing (1912-1954), one of the most
“There will always be things
influential we wish
founders to say
of the fieldinofour programs
Computer that in all
Science.
known languages ● can only becomputers
Designed said poorly.”
in WWII to break German codes
● General model of computers named after him (“Turing
And since programmers machines”)
are never satisfied with the programming
language they are●using, Also stated
one morea testquote
for Artificial
- fromIntelligence (the “Turing
Bjarne Stroustrup
Test”)
(inventor of C++):
● Watch The Imitation Game!!
“There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always
bitch about and those nobody uses.”