Introduction
• What are computers?
• Talking about general purpose, binary, digital computers
• Dumb machines that need to be told what to do
• How do we tell them what to do?
• By giving them instructions
• How do we communicate with them?
• Use special languages such as Assembly, FORTRAN, C, Python etc.
• What is a program?
• Precise set of instructions to solve a problems
• Art of writing these instructions is called programming
Programming Languages
• How are instructions written?
• Human readable form
• What are programming languages?
• Specific languages developed to write computer instructions
• Some are machine like languages such as assembly or low level languages
• Others are human readable or high level languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL, C, C++, Python
• Compiled vs interpreted languages
• How do we transform a human readable program into machine understandable
• Compilation vs Interpretation
• Example: Need to cook meat to eat – compiling, Salad vegetables can be eaten as is - interpreting
• Language for the course: Python
Why Python is popular
• Easy to learn: straightforward syntax and very readable
• Versatile: can be used for a wide variety of applications, including
web development, data analysis, and scientific computing.
• Automation: powerful tool for automating repetitive tasks, such as
file handling, web scraping, and software testing.
• Machine learning and AI support: popular choice for machine
learning, artificial intelligence, and data science.
• Active community: Python has a large and supportive development
community.
• Vast ecosystem: Python has a large ecosystem of libraries for data
processing, machine learning, data science, and more.
Setting up the Python environment on your computer
• Go to the official Python website (https://www.python.org/)
• Select the latest version of Python
• Select the "Windows installer" option
• Click "Download"
• Run the installer
• Follow the on-screen instructions
• Verify the installation by opening a command prompt and typing python -V (or py -V)
• Run Python and display some interactive commands and results
Setting up VS Code as the preferred
editor
• Go to the official Visual Studio Code site: https://code.visualstudio.com/
• Locate the latest version of VS Code for your operating system
• Download the installer as an .exe file.
• Install the downloaded file:
• Run the installer and click Next until you reach Finish.
• Choose support for Python when prompted
Our first Python program
1. Open VS Code
2. Type the code
Print(“Hello World”)
3. Save as a .py file
4. Run the program highlighting the output
• Using the Python CLI when needed (will be used in operators module etc.)
Programming Basics
•To design a program properly
1. Analyze the problem
2. Express its essence, with examples
3. Formulate statements precisely
4. Evaluate, test and revise if necessary
5. Pay attention to detail
Example program:
• Find the weight of metal required to make an
annular ring with inner and outer radii 2 cm and 5
cm. The metal sheet has a grammage of 10
gms/cm2. Assume pi=3.14
• Walk through analysis, variables, precision, testing etc.
(with diagrams)
r=5c
m
• r=2cm
The program
• Find area of larger circle:
• A1 = 3.14 * 5 * 5
• Find area of smaller circle:
• A2 = 3.14 * 2 * 2
• Find area of metal sheet to make the ring
• A3 = A1 – A2
• Find the weight of the ring:
• W = A3 * 10
• Answer W is in gms
Writing this program in Python
(screen rec.)
# Find area of larger circle:
A1 = 3.14 * 5 * 5
# Find area of smaller circle:
A2 = 3.14 * 2 * 2
# Find area of metal sheet to make the ring
A3 = A1 - A2
# Find the weight of the ring:
W = A3 * 10
# Answer W is in gms
print(“The weight of the metal ring is: “, W, “ grams.”)
