Advanced Computing

Lecture 1

Course overview & Python review

Your professor:

Now it's your turn:

• Your name
• Year
• Major (and minor if applicable)
• What do you want to learn or get out of this class?
• One thing that you like and/or like to do

Course basics

• For all majors other than CS/CE and pre-CS/CE
• Prerequisites:
  1. CMSC 201 (with a C or better)
• Is not equivalent to CMSC 202, Computer Science II
• Does not count as a CMSC elective for CS majors
• 3 credits, no lab
• Second class in the new Computing Minor (designed for non-computer science, non-computer engineering majors interested in pursuing further study in applied computing).
• Otherwise, this class is worth nothing outside of the 3 credits. Oh and, the educational value of course.

• Our TA is TBD.
• Course website: https://rjzak.github.io/cmsc-210/
• We'll use Blackboard for a few things here and there.
• Office hours are by appointment, or after class

When do I use...

Grading scheme

There are seven assignments, mostly programming and they are due approximately every other week.

Final exam

There isn't one. But we may meet for some activity, TBD.

Submissions & lateness policy

• Assignments will be due on Wednesday before midnight, unless otherwise announced.
• Late assignments will receive a zero.

Academic integrity

• Never submit work done by someone else as your own.
• If it's another student's work, you will both get a zero on the assignment, at minimum.
• I must report integrity violations to UMBC’s Academic Misconduct Reporting Database.
• Read the UMBC Undergraduate Student Academic Conduct Policy

There are ways to get help if you're struggling!

• You can talk to your classmates about concepts
• You can talk to your TA or come to my office hours
• You can compare the output of your program to someone else's ("Did I do this right?")
• You can work on practice problems together.
• You can get help if your computer is having problems at the Technology Support Center

Assignment Zero

Get familiar with Blackboard and do some basic admin there...

• Fill-out the First Day Survey
• Check Blackboard announcements
• Join the Discord server (if you want)
• Create an account on Github
• Should be quick

Course objectives

1. Become a better software engineer

• Learn Python: more and better
• Develop and structure more complex programs
• Understand software engineering fundamentals:
  • tooling
  • design
  • distribution
  • debugging
  • testing
  • version control

Course objectives

2. Build useful things

1. Data: acquisition, exploration, & visualization
2. HTML and CSS
3. Web scraping
4. Web application development
5. Machine learning

Why?

The skills you learn here can help you in future courses, in research and internships, and in your career.

What questions do you have?

Let's review some Python

Python is an interpreted, dynamically-typed, and strongly-typed programming language with garbage collection and significant whitespace.

Numeric Types

			# Integer (whole number)
			a = 255
			# Float (decimal type)
			b = 255.1
			c = float(255)  # Or c = 255.0
		

Numeric Operations

• Addition (+)
• Subtraction (-)
• Multiplication (*)
• Division (/, this always gives you a float)
• "Floor" division (//, this always gives you an int)
• Modulo (%, gives you the remainder)
• Rounding (round(1 / 3, 2))

String Type

			a = "I am a string"
			b = 'I am a string'
			c = """I am a string""" # a, b, and c are equal.
			# Backslashes used for escaping:
			d = "I am a string \"with a quote\"."
			e = """I am a
			multiline string."""
		

String Operations

• Concatenation

  "left " + "right"

• Changing case

  "a string".upper().lower()

• Stripping

  " a string ".strip()

• Splitting

  "A, B, C".split(", ")

• Joining

  ", ".join(["A", "B", "C"])

Control structures: decision

		# Simple:
		if a == 2:
			print("A is 2.")

		# Complex:
		if a == 2:
			print("A is 2.")
		elif a == 3:
			print("A is 3.")
		else:
			print("A is not 2 or 3.")
		

Control structures: iteration

		# WHILE: keep looping until some condition is met.
		a = 1
		while a < 4:
			a = a + 1

		# FOR: go through each item in an iterable.
		b = 0
		for number in [1, 2, 3]:
			b = b + number
		

Iterables: lists

• Compound type
• Mutable:

  
  				>>> my_list = [1, 2, 3]
  				>>> my_list.append(4)
  				>>> my_list
  				[1, 2, 3, 4]
  			

• Ordered
• Random access to any element or subset

  
  				>>> my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4]
  				>>> my_list[0]
  				1
  				>>> my_list[1]
  				2
  				>>> my_list[-1]
  				4
  				>>> my_list[0:2]
  				[1, 2]
  				

Iterables: more lists

• Lists have a length

  
  				>>> my_list = [1, 2, 3]
  				>>> len(my_list)
  				>>> 3
  			

• Can test for membership:

  
  				>>> my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4]
  				>>> 4 in my_list
  				True
  				>>> 5 in my_list
  				False
  				

Dictionaries

• Compound type
• Unordered set of key-value pairs
• Keys must be unique
• Keys must be of an immutable and hashable type
• Values do not have to be unique
• Values may be immutable or mutable

		pals = {
			"Bob": 2,
			"Carol": 1,
			"Kim": 0
		}

		# How many times have I hung out with Bob?
		pals["Bob"]  # I know Bob is in there
		pals.get("Bob")  # I don't know
		pals.get("Bob", 0)  # I want a default number.

		# Bob and I are no longer pals :-(
		del pals["Bob"]

		# I want a list of my friends' names
		pals.keys()

		# How many times have I hung out with all friends?
		sum(pals.values())

		# Am I pals with Bob?
		"Bob" in pals
		

Functions

• Allow us to name a block of code (the same way we might nave a value using a variable)
• Take zero or more values as arguments
• Return one value
• Allow us to organize our programs and avoid code duplication.
• Are defined using the def keyword
• The body of the function follows the definition and is indented

  
  				def add_numbers(number_a, number_b):
  					sum = number_a + number_b
  					return sum
  
  				new_number = add_numbers(5, 4)
  			

If you still feel shaky...

• Learn Python the Hard Way. Numbers and Math
• Google for Education. Python Strings
• Python for Beginners. Python For and While Loops
• Google for Education. Python Lists
• Python-Course.eu. Dictionaries