BCS 1, BCSec 1 & BIT 1 10/29/2023

Contents
• Introduction
Basic Concepts
• Computers
• Computer Organization
David T. Makota
• Computer programs
Faculty of Computing and Mathematics
The Institute of Finance Management • Programming
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania • Programmer
• Programming languages
• Software development
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Basic Concepts Basic Concepts

Lecture i - ii Introduction

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Introduction Introduction
• People make decisions every day to solve problems • Steps to follow to ensure the best decision.
that affect their lives. – Identify alternative ways to solve the problem
– If a bad decision is made, time and resources are wasted • List should be as complete as possible.
• Steps to follow to ensure the best decision. • Alternative solutions must be acceptable ones.
– Identify the problem. – Select the best way to solve the problem from the
• If you don’t know what the problem is, you cannot solve it.
list of alternative solutions.
– Understand the problem.
• Identify and evaluate the pros and cons of each
• Knowledge base of the person or machine for whom possible solution
you are solving the problem.
• Select criteria for the evaluation.
• Your own knowledge base – Guidelines for evaluating each solution.
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Introduction Introduction
• Steps to follow to ensure the best decision. • Types of Problems
– List instructions that enable you to solve the problem using – Problems solved with a series of actions such as balancing a
the selected solution. check book or baking a cake
• Must fall within the knowledge base. • Algorithmic solutions
• No instruction can be used unless the individual or the machine – Solution can be reached by completing the actions in steps
can understand it. – These steps are called the algorithm
– Evaluate the solution. – Problems that require reasoning built on knowledge and
• check its result to see if it is correct and satisfies the needs experience
• If the result is either incorrect or unsatisfactory • Heuristic solutions
– Review the list of instructions to see that they are correct or start the process – Such as how to buy the best stock or whether to expand the company
all over again
– The problem solver can use the six steps for both
algorithmic and heuristic solutions.
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Computers
• A computer is a device that can perform
computations and make logical decisions
billions of times faster than human beings can.
• The large computers introduced decades ago
were called mainframes
Basic Concepts
– Current versions are widely used today in homes,
Computers schools, business, government and industry.

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Computers Computers
• Silicon chip technology has made computing • Many of today’s personal computers can
so economical perform several billion additions per second.
– More than a billion general-purpose computers • Today’s fastest supercomputers can perform
are in use worldwide. thousands of trillions (quadrillions) of
– Billions more special purpose computers are used instructions per second!
in intelligent electronic devices like car navigation
– To put that in perspective, a quadrillion-
systems, energy-saving appliances and game
instruction-per-second computer can perform
controllers.
more than 100,000 calculations per second for
every person on the planet!
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Computers
• Computers process data under the control of
sets of instructions called computer programs
– These programs guide the computer through
orderly sets of actions specified by people called
computer programmers.
• A computer consists of various devices
referred to as hardware
– Keyboard, screen, mouse, hard disk, memory,
DVDs and processing units.
Computers
• The programs that run on a computer are
referred to as software.
• Hardware costs have been declining
dramatically in recent years, to the point that
personal computers have become a
commodity.

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Computer Organization

• Every computer may be envisioned as divided

into five logical units or sections:
– Input unit.
• This section obtains information (data and computer
programs) from input devices and places it at the
disposal of the other units so that it can be processed.
Basic Concepts • Humans enter information into computers through
keyboards and mouse devices.
Computer Organization • Information also can be entered in many other ways,
including by speaking to your computer, scanning
images/barcodes, reading from secondary storage
devices (hard drives, CD/DVD/USB drives)
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Computer Organization Computer Organization

• Output unit. • Memory unit.

– This section takes information that the computer
has processed and places it on various output
devices to make it available for use outside the
computer.
– Most information that is output from computers
today is displayed on screens, printed on paper,
played on audio players or used to control other
devices.
– This section retains information that has been
entered through the input unit
• Making it available for processing when needed.
– The memory unit also retains processed
information until it can be placed on output
devices by the output unit.
– Information in the memory unit is volatile
• It’s typically lost when the computer’s power is turned
off.

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Computer Organization Computer Organization

• Central processing unit (CPU). • Central processing unit (CPU).

– This section coordinates and supervises the – Many of today’s computers have multiple CPUs
operation of the other sections. • Can perform many operations simultaneously
– The CPU • Such computers are called multiprocessors.
• Tells the input unit when to read information into the • A multi-core processor implements multiprocessing on
memory unit a single integrated circuit chip
• Tells the ALU when information from the memory unit • A dual-core processor has two CPUs
should be used in calculations • A quad-core processor has four CPUs.

• Tells the output unit when to send information from

the memory unit to certain output devices.
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Computer Organization Computer Organization

• Secondary storage unit. • Secondary storage unit.

– This is the long-term, high-capacity
“warehousing” section.
– Programs or data not actively being used by the
other units are placed on secondary storage
devices (e.g. hard drive) until they’re again
needed
• possibly hours, days, months or even years later.
– Information on secondary storage devices is said
to be persistent
• it is preserved even when the computer’s power is
turned off.
• Secondary storage information takes much longer to
access than information in primary memory
• The cost per unit of secondary storage is much less
than that of primary memory.
• Examples of secondary storage devices include CDs,
DVDs and flash drives (sometimes called memory
sticks)

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Computer Programs
• A computer program is one or more instructions that
are intended for execution by a computer.
• Computer programs may result from the compilation
or interpretation of programming languages, direct
result of hardware processing, or manually input to
the central processor of a computer.
Basic Concepts • A computer program does nothing unless its
Computer Programs instructions are executed by a central processor.

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Computer programs Computer programs: cont

• A computer program expressed in a human-readable
computer programming language is source code.
– Source code may be converted into an executable image
by a compiler, or executed immediately with the aid of an
interpreter.
• Compiled computer programs are commonly
referred to as executables, binary images, or simply
as binaries
– A reference to the binary file format commonly used to
store the executable code.
• Computer programs are generally specified
using declarative, imperative, or visual
programming methods.
– With the imperative approach, an algorithm is
specified
– With the declarative approach, the output is
specified and the implementation details are
hidden.
– With a visual approach, program elements are
graphically manipulated rather than specified
textually.

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Computer programs: cont Computer programs: cont

• Computer programs may be categorized along • System Software
functional lines. – Programs that control and manage the basic operations of
– System software a computer.
– Application software – Includes the following types:
• Computer programs embedded in hardware devices • Operating System
– controls the internal operations of the computer’s hardware and
are called firmware. manages all of the devices connected to the computer.
• Utility Programs
– perform a specialized task that enhances the computer’s operation
or safeguards data.
• Software Development tools
– programs that are used to create, modify, and test software.

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Computer programs: cont Computer programs: cont

• Application Software • Program execution
– Typically, computer programs are stored in non-volatile
– Programs that people normally spend most of memory until requested either directly or indirectly by the
computer user to be executed.
their time running on their computers performing – Upon such a request the program is loaded into random
everyday tasks are referred to as application access memory where it can be accessed directly by the
central processor.
software. – The central processor then executes ("runs") the program,
instruction by instruction, until termination, either by a
– For example: successful self-termination or by either a software or
• Word processing hardware error.
– Modern day multiprocessor computers or computers with
• Spreadsheet multicore processors may run multiple programs on a
single computer simultaneously.
• Database
• Presentation
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Programming
• Computer programming is the iterative process of
writing or editing source code of computer
programs, followed by testing, analyzing and refining
this code.
• Many aspects of programming
– Programming is controlling
• Computer does exactly what you tell it to
Basic Concepts
– Programming is teaching
• Computer can only “learn” to do new things if you tell it how
Programming – Programming is problem solving
• Always trying to make computer do something useful — eg:
finding an optimal travel route

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Programming: cont
• Many aspects of programming: cont
– Programming is creative
• Must find a good solution out of many possibilities
– Programming is modelling
• Describe salient (relevant) properties and behaviours of a system
of components (objects)
– Programming is abstraction Basic Concepts
• Identify important features without getting lost in detail
– Programming is concrete
Programmer
• Must provide detailed instructions to complete task

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Programmer Programmer
• A programmer or software developer is someone • Application versus system programming
who programs computers, that is, one who writes – Computer programmers often are grouped into two broad
computer software. types:
• Applications programmers
• The term computer programmer can refer to a
• Systems programmers
specialist in one area of computer programming or to
– Applications programmers
a generalist who writes code for many kinds of • Write programs to handle a specific job, such as a program to track
software. inventory within an organization.
• One who practices or professes a formal approach to – Systems programmers
programming may also be known as a programmer • Write programs to maintain and control computer systems
software, such as operating systems and database management
analyst, software engineer, computer scientist, or systems.
software analyst.
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Programming Languages
• Programming language
– Is an artificial language that can be used to control the
behavior of a machine, particularly a computer.
• Programming languages, like natural languages, are
defined by syntactic and semantic rules which
Basic Concepts
describe their structure and meaning
– Syntax
Programming Languages • Grammatical rules for forming instructions
– Semantics
• Meaning /interpretation of instructions

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Programming Languages Programming Languages

• programming languages allow you to express
yourself more precisely than natural language
– As a result, programs cannot be ambiguous
• Categories of programming languages
– Machine language
• Machine is short for computing machine (i.e.,
computer)
• Computer’s native language
• Sequence of zeroes and ones (binary)
• Different computers understand different sequences
• Hard for humans to understand:
01010001...

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Programming languages Programming languages

• Categories of programming languages • Categories of programming languages
– Assembly language – High-level languages
• Mnemonics for machine language • FORTRAN, Pascal, BASIC, C, C++, Java, Python, etc.
• Low level • high level
– Each instruction is minimal – Each instruction composed of many low-level instructions
• Still hard for humans to understand: • Closer to English and algebra
ADD.L d0,d2 • Easier to read and understand:

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Software Development: A 5-Step Process

Basic Concepts

Software Development
The Waterfall Model

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Software Development Software Development

2) Designing the system
1) Analysis
– English description of system models, to meet a
requirement or specification
– Work with potential users to develop detailed
specifications
• May be written by non-programmer
– Divide & conquer
• System is composed of smaller subsystems which in
turn may be composed of even smaller subsystems
– Pseudocode
• Somewhere between English and program code
• describe tasks, subtasks, and how they relate
– Hand-simulation
• Desk-check pseudocode by stepping through it
without using a computer
– Often use diagrams to better communicate the
structure of the system

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Software Development Software Development

3) Implementing the design 4) Testing and Debugging
– Emphasis on good problem decomposition, well
structured design, and readable, well-
documented programming style
– Hand-simulate as you go, may need to backtrack
and redesign
– If design is good, most of the hard work should
be done
– Testing
• Submitting input data or sample user interactions and
seeing if program reacts properly
• Typically done in stages, starting with individual
components and working up to subsystems, and
eventually the entire program
– Debugging
• Process of removing program bugs
– Bugs
• Errors in code or design

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Software Development Software Development

5) Maintenance • Good program
– Finally, keep the program working and current – Satisfies the specification
– In a successful piece of software, maintenance is – Produced on time and within budget
often said to be 80% of the effort – User-centric design
• Result – Uses creativity to solve problem
– Working program – Well structured/organized/written/documented
• Solves original problem – Can be easily extended and maintained

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Summary
• Introduction
• Computers
• Computer Organization
• Computer programs
Basic Concepts • Programming
Summary • Programmer
• Programming languages
• Software development
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